My relative had six litres of fluid removed from her abdomen yesterday. She has terminal pancreatic and lung cancer. How long will she be expected to survive realistically?
This is terribly sad. 6 litres of fluid removed from your relative's abdomen sounds like a lot and I hope this has not been too painful for her.
Our website has information on pancreatic cancer as well as on lung cancer and you will find there a sub-section on survival but these need to be taken with a big pinch of salt as no one can really estimate precisely how long someone might live for. Unfortunately no one here will be able to tell you what her length of survival might be as this will depend on a number of factors and it's difficult to know really without knowing her full medical history. Even for the medical team looking after her, it can be really hard to give an accurate prognosis but they will be able to tell you a little bit more so perhaps you could speak to the specialist looking after her or to any medical expert who has full detailed knowledge of her conditions.
Even though it's really hard for anyone to predict length of survival, I hope that you will hear from the experiences of others here on Cancer Chat who have similarly supported a relative through terminal pancreatic cancer or who has been in a similar situation. We're thinking of your relative during this difficult time and I hope that things have settled down for her a little after having this big quantity of fluid removed from her abdomen.
