sharpeilover
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sharpeiloverMember
Good luck, Rick!!!
Great news for you, and a good update overall on your situation.
Your experiences are always well- explained and very instructional. May it all go well and lead to more good news in the future!!
p.s. who is your main doc at Mayo???sharpeiloverMemberAshley,
This post promises to be very helpful to my mother some time in the future as she has hundreds of bone mets. Fortunately the gem-cis has for the moment stopped them from growing or multiplying, bit there will come a time when it stops being effective…
Thank you for sharing!!!sharpeiloverMemberMy mother had intermittent and manageable heartburn for the year before she was diagnosed (at age 76). I do remember that in her 40’s she had either ulcers or heartburn- we all thought it was stress at the time.
But the complaint that brought her in for an MRI was a chronic pain in the back of her neck which turned out to be one of many metastic tumors in her spine and skeleton. A tiny tumor was found sitting on her bile duct- poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, considered likely to be cholangio, possibly gall bladder cancer. It has been 8 months since the initial diagnosis- gem-cis has halted the growth and spread of tumors- We are so grateful. But she is on her second transfusion- the chemo is doing its thing on her blood.
Clearly she has had cancer for some time. There were no real signs WHILE she had whatever metastasized into hundreds of blastic bone mets.
She smoked from age 16-35. Generally excellent heath and diet (though not organic), not an exerciser but slim.
Who would have ever guessed?
God bless you all, and may someone benefit from the wonderful collection of anecdotes uniquely available on this important site.sharpeiloverMemberLance,
Radiation and Hyper-radiation like cyberknife (lots of posts on this board on that) are only for localized tumors. I do not know about “lesions”.
She did have a series of local radiation treatments to a painful site on her neck before she started the chemo– there were tumors at this site that were impinging on the nerves. It helped a bit. But they have said that was her only window of opportunity for such “palliative” radiation.
My mom is about to finish her second (6 week) round of gem-cis— the first round of 6 weeks showed “stabilization”- no growth or multiplication of tumors. [Gemzar alone for 5 weeks did nothing to stop the tumors growth and multiplaication, btw.] But she has 100’s throughout her skeleton (known since her diagnosis in Oct 2009), so she does not qualify for any localized treatments of any kind. She does have one very small tumor in the common bile duct. It would be easy for them to remove this surgically if she did not have all the mets in her bones, or if she had only a few other mets in any other locations. She does not have any tumors anywhere else.
She will have a scan in the next week or two, to see if the gem-cis is still stabilizing the cancer. If not, we are out of options, I am afraid.
So it seems that you are following the current “gold standard” for this type of cancer with good results.
I would check in on this site about cyberknife and such after you find out more from the docs about what these skeletal “lesions” are.
Best of luck!!I will do a search on VERTEBLASTY, Gavin- thanks!
sharpeiloverMemberYes, we understand that with a limited number of mets in a bone, radiation and super-radiation techniques like cyber-knife can be applied.
Unfortunately, my mom has mets throughout her skeleton- 100’s. That is what they found when she was first diagnosed in Late Oct 2009. (Never any mets anywhere else except a small tumor on the common bile duct)
Has anyone else experienced this? Any treatments???
So far, she got no results from 5 sets of gemcitabine, then got stabilization from 6 sets of gem-ciis, now on second round of gem-cis, but no more options if this stops working…
Thanks all!!!!!!!!sharpeiloverMemberHi Marion,
Thanks for going on this trip and for the report!
We too are interested in the ABC trial info. Is it up on the Clinical Trials sites yet?
Thanks and hope you are well,
jackie
p.s. My mom is still on gem-cis but had to take a break for a while. Her side-effects are going up all the time, and she is feeling more joint pain and more nausea- from what, we do not yet know. It will be scan time soon… It has been nine months since her initial diagnosis of “likely” cholangio, stage 4 (bone mets)- that, in itself, is remarkable given the dire prognosis for this disease. We pray that the next scans continue to show no new mets and no growth in the tumor.May 13, 2010 at 11:41 pm in reply to: Recovery Act Funding Helping to Inform Personalized Medicine #38037sharpeiloverMemberLinda & anyone else- I can email it to you. I did not want to put too much onto the message board. Just let me know. Or if you want me to post the whole text, I can.
May 13, 2010 at 12:20 am in reply to: Recovery Act Funding Helping to Inform Personalized Medicine #38035sharpeiloverMemberHere is a well-written article by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker demonstrating the utterly mind-boggling hunt for cancer cures. It is definitely worth reading.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/17/100517fa_fact_gladwellsharpeiloverMemberThank you Marion and Ashley- so very helpful!!!!
sharpeiloverMemberMarion,
Still wondering if there is a cytological test for tumor tissue for cholangio, specifically…
Given that she is Stage IV of one or two cancers (definitively not bone cancer), treatment options are very limited no matter what type of cancer is there.
But there may be different things out there to treat her with. Her local doc is pretty much a chemo deliverer, period. So we are looking for more opinions, hopefully without traveling for a visit first.
Who ARE the specialists in this cancer?? That is hard for me to discover.
My father and I will be at the CanLiv Conference on Friday. Hopefully,we will learn more about diagnosis and treatments for Stage IV, and maybe some of the docs there are experts…?
CanLiv Board-member Dr Sirica was very helpful to me over the phone in helping me understand there are even various sub-types of cholangio.
Dr El-Khoueiry of USC-Norris needs an appointment, as do the two MassGeneral docs on the board, Dr Xu and I forget the other name now.
I read the post about the Mayo Clinic application with dismay, but it is the same thing I have experienced. And closer to my Mom, Moffett in Tampa FL has seen lees than 10 cases in the last 10 years.
It is like a maze.Looking hard!!
sharpeiloverMemberMarion, A BIG CONGRATULATIONS AND A BIG THANK YOU for your involvement in the steering committee.
Is there a place for some constructive criticism and suggestions from users of the cancer system?
i really feel that we need a much more coordinated effort among doctors to pool the patients with each of these rare cancers. There needs to be a national registry of who the patients are, and who the docs that know about these cancers are and what they offer.
Not only would this help the patients find the right care (diagnosis, treatment, trials, etc.) much more efficiently than they can they way things are now, but it would also allow for clinical trials to gather more patients.
The system now is totally random. It is amazing that such a life-or-death thing can be so hit-or-miss.
Please do report back on anything you can from this important work.
And I cannot tell you how incredibly helpful this website, forum and Foundation have been to us in my mother’s experience. Without you all, I do not know ere we would be today. The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation and its work really are a great model for advocacy.sharpeiloverMemberThank you so much for this, Marion.
My mother had mostly inconclusive, ie unsuccessful brushings and fine needle biopsies.
What tissues were successfully obtained (FNA only worked) from the GB/liver area and the pelvic bone were then stained. The stains then showed adenocarcinoma. It appears that the docs are “guessing” that it is CC because of the location of the mass and the absence of any other tumors anywhere else except in the skeleton.
My question is: are there any cytological tests for cholangiocarcinoma specifically?
And can adenocarcinoma from any other organ spread to the bile ducts or gall bladder?
We are still a little unsure if the diagnosis id correct.sharpeiloverMemberI have a question about distension of the abdomen.
My mom has been on chemo since late Dec. She now looks pregnant. And feels quite uncomfortable. Her digestion from top to bottom is excellent (thank, you, stent!). Her blood values incl for the liver are all fine. She drinks a ton of water and eats a healthy anti-cancer diet. Her weight has been stable since December. Her tumor near the gall bladder is microscopic and she has no other tumors except in her bones. Not in lymph glands, either- just did new scans.
What could this be?Is this a symptom of chemo? Is there anything that can be done?
Could this be “ascites”? From what I have read, if it were, that would mean her liver is deteriorating, but wouldn’t her blood tests reveal that?Thanks to anyone in advance who can shed light on this mystery.
p.s. Her doc ignores it when she asks about it- he is focused on the cancer and seems to think she should not worry about it. But she is uncomfortable.sharpeiloverMemberRevhed,
Looking at a post of your from Feb 23- did you send the records to those three hospitals without a visit and get a response? Whom specifically did you send them to?
So far, we keep hearing from various places that the docs need to SEE my mom before they look at the records and/or tell us what they can do. And it is darn hard to figure out which people to send them to.
Any help here would be most appreciated.
My mom has bone mets thourghout her skeleton but no other tumors except one sitting on the gall bladder. So she unresectable, not treatable with anything local, so officially stage IV. She is on gem-cis and has a stent– seems to have stabilized her, for which we are very grateful. But no one is helping us better understand what further treatments wold be available to her should the gem-cus stop working.
And we are a bit concerned about the diagnosis since the biopsies were all unsuccessful- they guessed at Sloan Kettering based on it being an adenocarcinoma located near the junction between the liver and the bile duct sitting on the gall bladder.
Anyway we are looking for expert help, and my mother does not want to travel around on speculation- we need to hear first that a doc think there is something to do.
So sorry to hear you are dealing with such a sad situation yourself. Prayers for you.
Thanks for sharing you experience at this difficult time.sharpeiloverMemberFoodie- this is very interesting! Thank you for sharing.
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