Okay I am back and here's the run down (These are the questions I asked my Oncologist)
1. How much "worse" is it?
The PET scan showed new cancer cells in both lungs and liver, "many" (no exact number given), still small but growing, these along with the ones that were there before.
2. What do you recommend now and why?
Starting the 19th of July we will start me on a drug called which is Vectibix is a cancer medication. It interferes with the growth of cancer cells by binding to a protein found on cancer cells which slows their growth and spread. This is not a chemotherapy. He wants to use this as it is the only conventional treatment left for me. It also has a nasty side effect of skin eruptions, rashes, fissures in the skin etc. etc. I will be on this every two weeks for three months then do another PET scan to see if it works, if it does we continue it, if not we try unconventional therapies (Clinical trials basically)
3. Surgery to resection liver and lungs any possiblity?
He said no as there are too many cancer cells in liver and lungs.
4. Radiation therapy a possibility?
He hemmed and hawed and finally said maybe but it was a reluctant maybe.
5. Ablation or cryogenic surgery a possiblity?
No as again there are too many cancer cells in liver and lungs.
6. Hepatic chemoembololization with radiation therapy a possibility?
He said probably not.
7. Chemo bath? (He's said no before but hey LOL)
He said no as they can only use that for the liver, the lungs would be getting no treatment.
8. Is the cancer in the liver causing my back pains and can we work on that? (Re's REB's problem)
He said is doubtful as there are not that many cancer cells to be causing the pain (Ummmm there are enough to make resection or surgery not a possiblity but not enough to be causing the back pain???? HUH?)
9. I am not going to die today, tomorrow, next week, next month, probably not this year or maybe not next year from this disease even if we stop treatment. But it will come. He again reiterated we have to treat this as a chronic disease such as heart disease or diabetes, bu from what he said, we are down to the last conventional option and there are not that many "non-conventional" (Clinical trials, using chemotherapy used for breast cancer or pancreatic cancer, etc) that I can see we can be hopeful for.
One last thing, I immediately went on line to check Vectibix and found this:
Vectibix is an epidermal growth factor receptor antagonist indicated as a single agent for the treatment of metastatic colorectal carcinoma with disease progression on or following fluoropyrimidine, oxaliplatin, and
irinotecan chemotherapy regimens. Approval is based on progression free survival; no data demonstrate an improvement in disease-related symptoms or increased survival with Vectibix.
• Retrospective subset analyses of metastatic colorectal cancer trials have not shown a treatment benefit for Vectibix in patients whose tumors had KRAS mutations in codon 12 or 13. Use of Vectibix is not
recommended for the treatment of colorectal cancer with these mutations.
05/2010 Amgen.com
I have the KRAS mutation but have no clue about this codon 12 or 13 so put in a call to my Oncologist to ask about it, no call back yet.
Thank you all for your prayers, thoughts and advice and if anyone can tell me anything about Vectibix I need to know about please do so.
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