pcl1029
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Hi,
Congrats,
But as always, this is the time to start thinking about how to prevent recurrence of this disease. Sorry, I am a man and may be emotionally is not up to par with all those ladies above to see this good news the same way as they do but give you the advice that ,for you, may be a bit earlier and unexpected.
God bless.Hi,
This combo provide about two more month in survival for pancreatic cancer patients.
It is again very expensive for such a short period of addition of life. Who knows Medicare will agree to cover the cost when Celgene applies for the FDA approval later this year for pancreatic cancer.
God bless.Hi, interesting, it can cause inflammation,pseudo or not, why? ,I need to do a research on this.
God bless.Hi,
Of course, Surgery is the only possible cur for CCA( cholangiocarcinoma )
Normally, the metal stent can be last as long as 6month to 2 years.
When did you put the metal stents in? If the stent still partially clogged, the doctors can ,after mob up the site they will put plastic stent inside the metal stent to keep the stent open, then depends on your condition, the stent can be replaced every 2-6 month.
God bless.Hi,
Since I do not know about your bilirubin level and how yellow you are in your eyes(jaundice); I can not provide any assumption to your current disease status. It is clear that the chance you have extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma is higher than the intrahepatic kind; but they do put”biliary stent”-a small rubber tube about 1.5 inches long and about 1/8-1/16 of an inch in overall diameter inside the liver bile ducts and they can get clogged very easily; the thickness of the bile, the content of the bacteria and the microscopic debris from the cells are factors for the contribution of the obstruction of the biliary stents.Tumor growth clearly will be a factor too.It is best for you to seek a 2nd GI liver specialist opinion in a university setting hospital;I think Baylor first then MD Anderson, to find out why you still have jaundice. I am not a doctor but a patient.
God bless.Hi,
I think the difference in holly22a’s case is that the patient has “many little ones throughout the liver”.
God bless.Hi, Mark,
Your posterior spot in the liver near the diaphragm on the right lobe is pretty like my spot before I had my second resection; After they wheeled me in the room for RFA, finally after an hour, they decided not to do RFA due to the leison ,which is 2-3cm in size ; they were worry they could not get it all and there was a high possibility that the procedure could puncture the diaphragm and that was the main reason they stopped the RFA on that part.
Your interventional radiologist may be better and more confident,but make sure you ask the possibility of puncture the diaphragm and what will be the result of it.
Just a suggestion, since you also have a lesion in the caudate lobe too,and the other lesion is ,as you describe posterior near the spine and high near the diaphragm, so in a tricky spot. . Therefore ask the doctors if is it better and safer to have the resection to remove the tricky lesion by wedge resection and completely resect and take out the caudate lobe all at once and at the same time? Ask Dr. Selby do a mob up exam to remove the other suspicious lesions is not a bad idea too. My suggestion may sound a lot more than you ask for;but if you are looking for long term survival;you know ethanol ablation and RFA ablation are not as good as resection;and what if they puncture your diaphragm and spine . I forgot about your age, but if you are under 65 like me and have no other chronic health problems, I think you should talk to the doctors and discuss about it. Ask how confidant the radiologist is to do that upper right RFA near the diaphragm and posterior near the spine face to face and how many he has done on such tough location in order to provide you decision info. not only thru the words of his mouth but the body language too of how confident he is in doing the tricky location RFA.
One more note ,the liver surgeon that treated me told me I can have up to FIVE resections in my case ,since I am relative young and no other health issue involved;but of course who wish for that ceiling of limitation.Good luck
and God bless.Hi,
If I may, no one as a patient including me, not to seek CAM( complimentary and alternative) medicine to treated ourselves in addition to the western style traditional ” evidence base” medicine practice. According to one study, the higher education the patient or the caregiver has,the more likely they will seek additional CAM treatment for cancer and that is why so many money may be wasted on CAM.( study done by univ. of Pittsburg)
There are studies that indicate alternative treatment like yoga, meditation and acupuncture may help in palliative treatment setting. Moderate exercise like tai-chi may help too. Complimentary treatment like using Chinese herbal medication compounding prescriptions may improve overall well being of cancer patient with regard to shortness of breath symptom, fatigue ,diarrhea and nausea. But the key to Chinese herbal meds is to find someone who really know the stuff well over his or her lifetime practice by trail and error, more or less like phase one and two study conduct by the practitioner. in short, by experience. And for you to find a good and experienced one in the States is very tough. You may need a Chinese or Korean friend who is over 50 years old to help you to find one in San Fran,new York or in Toronto.
I am a patient of this cancer for 45 months. Recur once and resected , on adjuvant chemotherapy Xeloda for 10 month; clean PET scan last month; then start the low dose Xeloda as maintenance therapy twice daily for a couple years more. I take a Chinese medicine called yun-zhi( trade name Oncozac) 3 capsules twice a day as complimentary medicine ,for improving my immune system; i take vitamin D3 twice a day,and a COX-2 inhibitor like celebrex 200 mg twice daily.I also use Chinese Herbs in powder forms to compound my own Chinese herbal medicine once or twice a week to increase my overall well being and strength in fighting fatigue . This requires a lot of research and understanding of the Chinese herbal medicine. But it can be done by research thru the Sloan- Kettering web site for herbal medicine. It is a great site to start. In addition to the above, I keep my self hydrated all the time; I take naps when I feel tired and I go to bed early around 9 pm and try to get at least 8 -10 hour sleep.One word if I may say so, to treat cancer just by alternative treatment or/and CAM is not potent enough to fight the cancer. The adaptability of cancer is so great that even the targeted agents used in standard cancer protocol will lost their efficacy due to drug resistance, and therefore change in treatment plan including interventional radiation and new drugs are not uncommon ,not to mention if you just rely on CAM only .
A close friend of Steve Jobs had cancer and he asked Steve( who was in his final months of the journey on earth) for advice; Jobs told his friend( who help Jobs to invent the mouse for the MAC) NOTto repeat the mistakes he made for treating his own pancreatic cancer. I think that was Jobs’ best advice to those who need his wisdom.
God bless.Hi, everyone,
This is related to the above , please check this out also when consider using Augmentin.
Liver:
A moderate rise in AST (SGOT) and/or ALT (SGPT) has been noted in patients treated with ampicillin-class antibiotics but the significance of these findings is unknown. Hepatic dysfunction, including hepatitis and cholestatic jaundice, [see CONTRAINDICATIONS], increases in serum transaminases (AST and/or ALT), serum bilirubin, and/or alkaline phosphatase, has been infrequently reported with Augmentin. It has been reported more commonly in the elderly, in males, or in patients on prolonged treatment. The histologic findings on liver biopsy have consisted of predominantly cholestatic, hepatocellular, or mixed cholestatic-hepatocellular changes. The onset of signs/symptoms of hepatic dysfunction may occur during or several weeks after therapy has been discontinued. The hepatic dysfunction, which may be severe, is usually reversible. On rare occasions, deaths have been reported (less than 1 death reported per estimated 4 million prescriptions worldwide). These have generally been cases associated with serious underlying diseases or concomitant medications.— from drug.com.
God bless.
Hi,
With your description, I will guess you may have hilar extrahepatic CCA.
I am not a doctor, but for some unknown reason, 5FU works more effective than intrahepatic CCA which I have.
I will suggest to get another oncologic opinion after the result of the two month trial of the 5 FU / oxaliplatin .
God bless.Hi,
Yes, gem/ cis response rate is average about 30%.
5FU/ oxaliplatin will be better tolerated and may provide stable response to your tumors. If not the next step will be clinical trial involved targeted agents.
Where are you be treated and do you know what kind of bile duct cancer you have? ( in the bile duct outside the liver or inside the liver ).
God bless.Hi,
If I may, I will not recommend radioembo for treating CCA But rather use chemoembo. Based on the mortality of the patients population on this forum.
Except the very young patient who did have radioembo done and still around.
Most of the people who had radioembo in the links that Marion mentioned above are no longer here. I suspect this is related to the toxicity o f the radiation that the older patients had a hard time to recover from it.
As you may know, I am only a patient of this disease for 45 month, and absolutely I am not a doctor.
God bless.Hi, 2000miler,
Nice job to get the data.
please add KRAS wide type and EGFR positive to my column;
Also I am sensitive to gemcitabline,5FU(and Capecitabine);the platium group on clude Cislpatin and Oxaliplatin and Carpoplatin.;also senisitive to EGFR inhibitors like sorafenib and Taceva (erlotinib) ,and other agents like ,celecoxib and calciferol ; I am not sensitive to irinotecan,laptinib,trastuzumab and temozolomide.
God bless.Hi, Tom,
You know I am but a patent. and not a doctor.
Based on your message of this board,your father had only the left lobe of the liver left. Is it just a solid tumor<3cm or several lesions less than 3cm in size?.
since you just ask questions without providing the CT scan details (ie: location and size and number).I cannot give you the best answer that I can. But if the location are allowed and the size and number is as I stated above;you can have RFA and the newer radiation technology ( ask for a 2nd opinion from an interventional radiologist who is board certifiedfor answer.)Since the right lobe(the bigger part) of the liver is gone,and if the liver tumor is relatively large in the left. I do not think surgery is the best option RFA or chemoembolizationmay be othr choices . Howeveer, I will NOT do radioembolization because the result comes back from my observation from this board, at least ,is poor(4/4 passed away for the older patient. I truly suspect the low radiation of that procedure have added unwanted side effects to damage further cannotthe overall liver viability and cannot recover like the young patients do.
God bless.
