It has been quite a while since I have posted. My husband became very sick while on chemotherapy last summer and ended up in the local hospital for ten days. When we followed up with our doctor at MUSC, we found out that a second tumor had appeared since May – while we were on a chemo cycle. All chemotherapy was stopped, and the doctor told us that with the appearance of a second tumor, that we would no longer be considered a candidate for resection, even if the first tumor shrank away from the hepatic artery and the portal vein.
We were fortunate enough to be enrolled in a clinical trial through MUSC: http://prc.hcc.musc.edu/portal/cto/ClinicalTrials/tabid/488/Default.aspx?STUDYID=101504&PROGRAM=PhaseI He was the second to enroll, and he has been taking one pill a day (a sphingolipid compound) since the end of September. He has had two CT scans since then– one in December and one this week– both tumors remain unchanged, and no new growths have appeared.
LIke I said in my heading, it isn’t a cure, but we can live with this. He has no side-effects from the one-pill dose, and his mood is much better. When he was diagnosed May 25, 2010, he was told he had 1-2 years to live. We were so excited to find out that we are going to beat that prognosis!
For anyone interested…they are now beginning to enroll people for the two-pill-a-day level.