Search Results for '5fu'

Hi Genevieve, thank you so much! I’m so glad that your husband was able to have the re sections and really hope that all continues to go well. My husband had his last radiation today but is still on a week of 5fU chemo via pump, apparently this aids the radiation effectiveness. We won’t know for at least a month whether the tumour will shrink as radio continues to take effect after the last treatment. My husband’s liver surgeon is the best in Melbourne but because the cancer had metastised into abdominal cavity he wouldn’t go ahead. He initially thought of removing 3/4 of the liver but because of the lengthy recovery the metastised cancer would have a chance to run rampant, so they had to get on to chemo immediately. I think my husband’s case is quite a difficult one unfortunately. I really appreciate your information Genevieve, we will see what the radio does and I will certainly keep Dr Grimison in mind for a second opinion. Yes, I’m curious about the molecular testing.
Best wishes to you and your husband!!!!
Regards
Mandy

Dear All,

just an update this time.

5FU is clearly not working for our case (Lung mets).
Locally the tumour is well controlled but latest CT scan shows new spots in the lungs.
Our oncologist is now thinking of Irinotecane…
Does anyone have any experience with this drug?

Best wishes

Nick

Thanks gavin. The article has a recommendation for when dialysis should follow chemotherapy that I will ask the oncologist about. If John has chemotherapy on Tuesday morning and dialysis is Wednesday night, it seems like it is beyond recommendation.

I am not sure I have a good answer for why this cocktail is being recommended. As background john had partial liver resection in October 2013 without clean margins. He had 5fu for 7 treatments at reduced dosages due to his other medical conditions including renal failure, which he did not.handle well (two hospitalizations during treatment). March 2014 scans were clear. So he was told to follow up with six month scans in September. A few weeks ago he developed a cough and difficulty breathing. I thought it was allergies because he was spending a lot of time doing yard work. Turns out his right lung had half filled with fluid due to cancer now on lung. Ct scan indicates it is also back in liver. Local oncologist consulted with oncologist at sloan Kettering and are in agreement to try gemzar this time. Dosage that john can handle is the concern.

I can’t believe how long it has been (7 months!) since I officially updated this thread.

As I said in November, we had this plan:

“We have decided to continue on Gem/Cis at Stanford until January, and then switch to UCSF and do IMRT + Xeloda.”

and that is pretty much what has happened.

Andrea had her last Gem/Cis treatment Dec. 18. In total, she was one treatment short of twelve cycles. Overall, she handled the chemo really well. A little tired, and a little hair thinning, but pretty manageable all things considered. Towards the end of the treatment though her blood counts were starting to get low and not rebounding quite as quickly as earlier.

The net result of chemo:
-Main tumor 1/3 original size and PET inactive
-Two satellite “medium” tumors significantly small, necrotic looking and PET negative
-“Constellation” of tiny tumors no longer PET active or visible

Pretty good from where we started.

In late January (2014), Andrea started IMRT radiation therapy. The plan was to irradiate the area around the main tumor. The logic given was that this tumor would be the one most likely to cause problems in the future, and that all the shrinkage gave an opportunity to treat it within a manageable IMRT field. The treatment regime consisted of 28 days of radiation (5 days a week for 5.5 weeks).

Radiation, it turned out, was much harder than chemo, both mentally and physically. About halfway through treatment, Andrea was having difficulty keeping down any food or drink. This lasted throughout the remaining weeks of treatment and didn’t really start improving until 3 weeks post treatment. During those weeks, Andrea lost 15-20 pounds and was very weak. Mentally, the challenge was to get up every day and go to another treatment when you knew that was what was causing you to feel so lousy.

Andrea had her last radiation treatment March 5. I guess you never know how you will respond. During chemo, the side-effects for Andrea seemed easier than advertised, but just the opposite was true for radiation.

Andrea also took Xeloda (aka capacitabine aka 5FU) during radiation, since that supposedly helps the effectiveness of the radiation treatment. Since radiation was only treating the main tumor, the Xeloda also acted as systemic therapy for the other tumor areas.

Andrea got her first post radiation scan in late March. Good news. The treated areas looked as expected, and the untreated areas looked dormant (looking at the untreated areas was actually the purpose of the scan since they said it was too early to evaluate the radiation region).

At this point, the oncologist suggested a treatment break until June. The idea was to let Andrea recover from the radiation, and then see what happens to the tumors. If all remained quiet, the likely path would be localized treatment to each “medium” tumor. If there was a recurrence, then that would dictate the treatment path.

By April 1 (Andrea calls it her “Canniversary”), Andrea was mostly recovered from radiation, and quickly getting her strength back. When not knocked on her butt from radiation, Andrea likes to be active and involved. Her new passion is fund raising for CCF…you will all be hearing more on that later!

It is now mid-June, and the last two months without treatment have been fantastic. Andrea feels great, and things seem almost normal. We even got to spend a week in Paris. Neither one of us had ever been to Paris, and it was fantastic. Since the diagnosis last April, I think this was the best two months that we have had.

However, everyone says that this disease is a roller coaster, and I can see that more and more. We just got the results from Andrea’s June PET/CT scan, and the news was not good. Two new tumors in the liver. One is 1cm and one is 2.5 cm, both PET active.

We don’t have much in the way of details yet (we see the oncologist next Monday), but that seems like an awful lot of growth if nothing was showing up in March. My theory is that since the March scan was not a PET scan, but only a CT scan, they missed the beginnings of these tumors. I will find out more in a couple of days.

I guess the one positive is that the tumors are still contained to the liver. The report also indicated that no lymph nodes showed signs of involvement. Still a major bummer.

So that is the latest. Hopefully, Andrea can get back into the “good news / what’s working” column soon.

Jason