what treatments are out there
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Welcome, Julie!! My sister’s on the Gemcitabine/Cisplatin combination & is tolerating it well, over all. She’s finished her 4th cycle so should be due for another scan fairly soon.
GOOD LUCK with your partner’s healing & future treatment.
Julia
Hi Gissy,
Yes it does indeed help us when we can come here and talk with others when we are in this fight. Everyone here has been great for me with all their help and support. And as Katie says, it does help so much to be armed with as much information as possible as then you can make informed decisions.
The info Katie posted does sum up pretty much what PDT is and how it works and thanks to you Katie for posting it. The light sensitive drug they used on my dad was Photofrin and it took about 2 days for it to circulate throughout his body. If they had used a lesser amount of the drug then it would have taken less time to circulate, but they used a ton of it with my dad. It does go into every cell in the body but the majority of it masses in the canerous cells. Then they go in and basically zap it with the laser and the whole process took a few hours. If you want to find out more about it you can search for some of my earlier posts on it or just ask me anything.
My best wishes to you.
Gavin
You’re most welcome. I think it helps so much when you are well informed about all the options.
Katie
Hi Julie,
Welcome to the board. I have copied this from the Macmillan cancer website in England to describe PDT to you, hope it helps ~
Photodynamic therapy (PDT)
PDT| uses a combination of laser light of a specific wavelength and a light-sensitive drug to destroy cancer cells. In bile duct cancer it is used to help relieve symptoms.The light-sensitive drug (a photosensitising agent) is injected into a vein. It circulates in the bloodstream and enters cells throughout the body. The drug enters more cancer cells than healthy cells. It does not do anything until it is exposed to laser light of a particular wavelength. When a laser is shone on to the cancer, the drug becomes active and destroys the cancer cells.
Katie
Hi Gavin
Thanks for responding just knowing people are listening helps. I’m sorry I don’t know what PDT is could you explain it for me.JulieHi Gissy,
I just wanted to stop by and welcome you to the site. I hope you will keep coming back here as you will get a ton of support from people who are in your shoes. I can’t help you with your chemo question as my dad never got chemo, his treatment was PDT.
I hope the chemo goes well and I wish you both my best wishes.
Gavin
Hi Janet
I was told that healing had to be first as chemo will stop that. He’s had a lot of trouble with fluid on his right lung and also bile seeped into his stomach cavity so he has had drains put into both areas and they seem to be working well. So let’s hope this will be the end of all our setbacks as it’s been approx 3 weeks since surgery. Also thanks for the information on chemo drugs. I think here in Aus we use different drugs but have been told that if they don’t work they can get their hands on drugs from the USA so that’s why I’m trying to get as much info as possible so if this does happen I know what is happening. Once again thanks Janet for all your help.JulieHi,sorry to hear your news.With regard to chemo,the preferred regime is gemcitabine given alone or with a platinum drug such as cisplatin.It cannot start too soon after surgery as it will delay healing.Good luck Janet
Thanks for all your support he has it in the bile ducts. It was found quite early as it’s in the section where the left and right join in the liver which then joins into the main bile duct. Surgery was to be removal of the left side of the liver, gaul bladder then reconstruction. This didn’t happen due to the spread so the surgeons thought it best to leave, as the tumour was so small that no cat scan mri, could detect it. The reason it was found as he went jaundice. He had 3 1mm tumours found in the stomach cavity and on a kidney but these were removed but the spread has started so they decided to stitch him back up so chemo could start as soon as possible. We’ve had a few set backs but hopefully he will leave hospital in the next few days and start chemo asap. Thanks for all the tips and hopefully others will have some good ones too. Julie
Hello Julie….I would like to follow Kris and Lainy and welcome you. As had been mentioned much information has been shared with the generous members on this site and I am sure for much support and information coming your way.
Best wishes,
MarionHello Julie and welcome to our Family. We need to have a little more information, like where the tumor is located, what kind of surgery did they do and etc. So sorry you had to find us but you have come to the right place. Please give us a little more information and I know many of our CC Family will be sending you all kinds of great advise.
Hi Gissy,
Welcome to the site. Gemzar and Xeloda in combo with either Oxilaplatin or Cisplatin seem to be the two main chemos used. If you look under the chemo section of the board, you can find peoples experiences.Other treatments include PDT, Radiofrequency ablation, radiation, cyberknife, proton beam radiation, SIRT, and others that escape me now. Under the tab Cholangiocarcino at the top of the page is a folder called treatment options that gives you some infor. You can use the search function to pull up relavent threads in the forum.
There are a couple of people from Australia here and I am sure they will chime in soon to welcome you. Best of luck on your partners treatment.
Kris
My partner was just diagnosed with this dreadful thing. All test came back great but surgery showed that it had spread. We’re about to start chemo and as we live in Australia there isn’t much information out there so I was wondering if any one out there would let us know what chemotherapy drugs they are using, what results they are getting and also what ones weren’t working and what they were changed to. He’s 45yrs old so any help any one can give would be greatly appreciated. thanks Julie
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