ANOTHER doctor weighs in on McCain's apparent health

[FourScore]

ONCE AGAIN, FROM AMERICABLOG:
(Definitely click on the link and read the whole post. This is only a portion.)
http://www.americablog.com/2008/10/another-doctor-weighs-in-on-mccains.html

...We need to see the final path reports on the removed lymph nodes. Obviously the doctors were concerned enough that they did an invasive biopsy into the area of his left cheek/temple. His doctors are hedging their answers when they say, he's fine for now, or we see no evidence of metastatic disease now -- and that if they had seen it they would've treated it. But that was a very serious and deep enough lesion (at 2.2) to have them do such an invasive surgery. Furthermore, if the node was positive they would not necessarily have offered treatment before they had evidence of actual disease. The treatment is debilitating and severe. We need to see the medical records.

In medicine, the rule is: You look for one explanation that covers all the phenomena, before you look for three explanations. The chances of two unrelated melanomas next to each other , when several of the commenting physicians are thinking satellite... it's unlikely that the side-by-side melanomas are unrelated.

Second, the mets (metastatic sites) from melanoma do not show up on the skin, that's not the worry. They metastatize to liver, lung, brain -- very often brain. From what I've seen, there was no official determination that is was not a satellite melanoma. Assigning a "stage" to a patient's cancer is a way to organize the data from thousands of patients and predict for your patient. But its not like the inside of a clock where the pieces are all there. When someone has a satellite lesion, the Stage IIA standard predictions are not the same as someone with simply a Stage IIA lesion (I believe that's what they gave him?) without the satellite lesion.

The significance of a satellite melanoma is that it puts him in a more serious, poor prognostic category.

WE NEED THE PATH REPORTS.
WE SHOULDN'T BE GUESSING ABOUT SOMEONE WHO IS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT.
WHY ARE WE GUESSING?

I wouldn't fly on an airplane with a pilot 10 years post melanoma who had not been followed/staged/ examined because he might seize and the FAA wouldn't let him fly as far as I know.