11 wks pregnant diagnosed with Grade IV Glioblastoma

toigarra

My sister-in-law, 38 yrs old, who lives in Argentina was diagnosed 6 weeks ago with a Grade IV GBM and at the same time she also found out she was pregnant. She has had surgery where Drs were able to remove 80% of the tumor and from which she has recovered very successfully. As you can imagine, doctors are not too optimistic regarding her prognosis and things are even more complicated because of the pregnancy. Since it is not an option to do chemo during her pregnancy she is only going to be treated with radiation until the baby could be safely delivered and then the plan is to start chemotherapy. Apparently this plan would reduce her prognosis to 1 to 3 years depending on how she responds.

Radiation would start once she has completed her first trimester of pregnancy since it is not safe for the fetus to receive indirect radiation during the first 12 weeks (this is the organ formation stage for the fetus).

So this means she has not been treated (except for the surgery) since she was diagnosed on August 20th, that is a lot of advantage for a tumor that aggressive to grow freely!!

Anyway, she is such a unique case (due to the early stage of the pregnancy) that all the doctors we have contacted have not heard of a similar case.

I guess we are reaching out to see if anyone in this community has heard of a similar case and can share the experiences they have and the treatment that was done.

Many thanks for all the help!

sue Siwek

oh my! can she come to the
oh my! can she come to the states? we have so many great hospitals here. not to disparage argentina. my husband was diagonsed in 2000 and is celebrating the begining of his 11th year. can argentinan doctors be in contact with doctors in the states to work with one another to find a treatment for her?

sue Siwek

i should also mention the my
i should also mention the my husband has an aa grade 3 inoperable tumor. a little different from your sister but serious. don't give up.