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An extraordinary patient of mine has set me thinking. He is a 55year old man who went in for elective inguinal hernia repair. At operation the surgeon thought that the omentum just "didn't feel right" and biopsied it. The result came back as nodular metastatic carcinoma of the appendix- the oncologists saw and reviewed, a hopeless prognosis. The patient was sewn up and told the bad news. No treatment offered. This was in January 1995 and the patient has well outlived his expected three months and remains well. Recently he had an incisional hernia repaired by the same surgeon who found the tumour nodules to be unchanged- having neither advanced or receeded. As he has always been symptom free, he may have had the pathology for years before his incidental diagnosis. Why is he alive? has his body come to live symbiotically with the tumour? Two more questions 1. Anyone out there have similar cases? If so should we be looking into these patients more instead of thanking God they're still alive? What is their secret? 2. Does anyone know of any published work on this topic? -- Peter Glover Chuch View Surgery Rayleigh Essex %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%