My father is 72 he has copd and is being referred for a chest x-ray for sinister lesions is this likely to be cancer?

Low likelihood: If he has COPD due in part to smoking history, then the risk of lung cancer is higher than in non-smokers. That said, most lesions seen on chest x-ray do not turn out to be cancer. If a lesion was noted on a prior chest x-ray, then it probably did not have features exhibited by typical tumors, thus the wait-and-see approach. This x-ray will be compared to evaluate for growth/changes