Introduction and Summary

JAWsSavannah
JAWsSavannah Member Posts: 57
edited March 2014 in Thyroid Cancer #1
I'm new here but not new to follicular cancer of the thyroid.

Mine was found in late 2005, 14 months after a spontaneous fracture of a rib. FNA was done guided by CT, and the pathology report found the rib mass was follicular Ca of the thyroid. The CT done at the time included the lower portion of my neck and the radiologist reported a 25mm nodule there. A couple months later I had a rib resection and total thyroidectomy, then RAI about 6 weeks after surgery.

The initial follow up work was positive, with my Tg level falling from 125 down to about 12. At that point it started climbing. Two years after the first RAI I had a second one at a higher dose, 200 millicuries. Uptake scans showed little of interest but several PET scans showed suspicious lesions in my lungs, in my neck, and on my spine. The conclusion was my Ca was not responsive to RAI, one of the few.

So now I'm in phase III of a clinical trial for an experimental drug, pazopanib. Phases I and II showed promise with a small sampling of people, phase III has about 110 people, IIRC.

In a couple days I will have scans done to see how the pazopanib is working. Blood work a few weeks ago was encouraging--my Tg level was down to 333 (from 1225).

Anyone else out there in a clinical trial?

Comments

  • miladyx
    miladyx Member Posts: 85
    #2
    if you don t mind me asking...
    ... how old were you at diagnosis?
  • JAWsSavannah
    JAWsSavannah Member Posts: 57
    #3
    Let's see, I am about a
    Let's see, I am about a month shy of 61...in late 2005 I would have been...57. The rib snapped at age 56...how many years would it take to go from the thyroid to the rib, then weaken it...guessing 10 or more.

    My pet theory (totally unconfirmed by anyone in the medical field) is that the years I spent doing arc welding with less than perfect protection exposed my thyroid gland to large amounts of UV rays, a form of radiation. Another possibility is that chronic enlarged lymph nodes were treated with radiation when I was a child. My mother does not recall me getting such treatments, however.

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