Ankylosing Spondylitis or lung cancer?

Hi all,

I have just joined this forum because my dad is having some tests at the hospital.
A couple of weeks ago, he went for a PET CT, arranged by his urologist. He has prostate cancer (it's under control but values slightly up since last time). He told urologist that he has severe lower back pain, hip pain, radiation to the legs, difficult to bend to the floor, difficult to get up of the bed and cough. Urologist agreed with scan, because it could also be mets of prostate cancer (very unlikely but urologist wants to have that off the table). Ok, so scan done, all well with prostate.. BUT... they found 1 spot on his spine`, 1 spot on his sternum and 1 spot on his right lung. That is a bit of a shock! It's not clear what it is (but it's got nothing to do with prostate cancer). There are also some other spots which are there since 2008 apparently, they have never told that as they thought it was nothing.
So now urologist refers my dad to pulmonologist to do CT scan and pulmonary function test. I am very anxious about the outcome, but on the other hand I am quite sure it ankylosing spondylitis. Why?
- My dad has got several periods where he did have severe back pain, pain in the hips, couldn't get up very easily, was difficult to come out of bed, radiation to his legs. And than afterwards everything was OK untill the next flare-up.
- One or two times he's had an episode of hyperventilation, so bad that he wanted to call an ambulance himself. He was really out of breath.
- the last two years my father would cough and sneeze for several weeks in the Winter (I think 4 weeks) because of a cold. This coughing passed after that period and the rest of the year he does not cough.
- My mom says he does have sleep apnea
- He does have uveitis sometimes, mostly when his back and other parts of the body hurts
- I noticed that when his PSA elevated, he had a flare up at the same time (maybe there is an connection too).
- He's had hives a couple of times.
So I can almost thick every box of AS.
That was the intro 😉. And this is the part where I need your reaction and opinion please:
Have you been on the same road of incidentally finding a spot on the lung, and bones of which they thought it could also be lung cancer? What was the outcome?

Questions in general:
- Do you also think my dad can have AS?
- Do you think new spots on bones and lung can be caused by AS?
- Do you think the old spots on the scan can be damage from AS? (the old spots have not changed at all)

- Because of the coughing and hyperventilation; would it be possible that his sternum was inflamed and that the inflammation left damage on the sternum and that this is what they see now? As for the spot on the lung, would it be possible that coughing is causing a nodule or could there be fibrosis caused by AS?

Your opinion is very much appreciated!

Thank you!

Laura
Ps: I don't know where you are from, I'm from the Netherlands so please forgive me if I sometimes make in grammar 😉.