My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She later developed bone cancer. She has now been told that she has brain cancer in some spots. What else should we expect? With all of these different types of cancer, what is her life expectancy?

When a doctor tells you that a lung cancer has spread to the bone and brain, many patients incorrectly hear this as “brain cancer” or “bone cancer” (both of which are much less common than lung cancer). It is very common for lung cancer to spread to other organs, especially the brain and bone, but also frequently the liver or adrenal glands — even to the skin. I suspect the bone and brain cancer your mother has is lung cancer that spread to these other organs. It is much less likely that she has three different types of cancer, and you can ask her doctor to clarify this if you are not sure.

As far as what this means for her prognosis, if her cancer has spread to these other organs, it is unlikely to be cured, and we typically focus on controlling the symptoms caused by the cancer. For some patients this means chemotherapy, or radiation therapy, both of which can effectively control symptoms in the right patient. But there are many other therapies that can control symptoms of advanced cancer.

I shy away from predicting life expectancy when I know so little about the person, because the evidence we can cite to answer these questions applies on average, and by definition, statistically speaking, most people are not average.

Learn more in the Everyday Health Lung Cancer Center.