YOUR OPINION PLEASE.

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  • pepebcn
    pepebcn Member Posts: 6,331 Member
    #22
    pepebcn said:

    Just one of 3 cm Raquel!
    Of course I will ! Thank you!

    Just one problem Scouty! my beloved cousin THE SURGEON!
    yes he is my wife's first cousin! wants to me operated! Hahahahaha.Good in one hand bad in the other!
  • lisa42
    lisa42 Member Posts: 3,625 Member
    #23
    my experience
    Hi Pepe,

    When first dx, I had 12 visible tumors in my liver that lit up on the PET/CT. After 6 months of Folfox, nothing lit up anymore and only 3 still showed up on the CT. My onc said I didn't need to do anything because those remaining three were now dead tissue. My surgeon contacted me and said he wanted to get those remaining three out of there. He also told me that sometimes when things don't show up on the scans anymore, he's had the experience of discovering in surgery that they are sometimes still there (he uses a handheld ultrasound device on the liver before cutting into the actual liver). Sure enough, in addition to the three he found three more tumors. So, I had 50% of my liver removed with a total of 6 tumors in that, all of which tested positive for cancer even though nothing was lighting up on the PET/CT anymore.
    Unfortunately, as you probably already know, I did have recurrence in my liver. I originally had tumors in basically all parts of my liver when dx. So, I knew that even though I was having part of my liver removed, that the parts that were remaining had once had tumors in it & still could have microscopic cancer cells in it. The only way I could do anything about that was to take out my entire liver! So, knowing that I had a recurrence in the liver since then in the areas where tumors were and went away, I would recommend you have the surgery where those spots once were.

    It's not a fun surgery by any means, but I think it would make your chances of a liver recurrence far less likely.


    Lisa
  • scouty
    scouty Member Posts: 1,965 Member
    #24
    pepebcn said:

    Just one problem Scouty! my beloved cousin THE SURGEON!
    yes he is my wife's first cousin! wants to me operated! Hahahahaha.Good in one hand bad in the other!

    Not a bad move Pepe
    Surgery is the best way to get to NED. Your cousin obviously loves you. Here in the US, some insurance companies probably wouldn't pay for it!

    I don't think you will find a single person on this board that is NED after just doing chemo. I am the only person here that I know of that had mets die and never had surgery on them. I know I am in a huge minority too so don't go by the obvious luck that I had, go by the stats. Chemo is a starter and maybe good at clean up but I have seen way too many here where that clean up/mop up chemo didn't work. Surgery is the best if you can get it but try to get your cousin to do a MRI first to make the tough surgery is necessary.

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