Clinical trial success stories needed!

tlo

I am creating this page for my husband, Tony. In March of 2010 he was diagnosed with stage IV cancer of the small intestine during a hernia operation (which turned out to be cancer causing the hernia). We chose Vanderbilt as our hospital. At that point, the CT/PET showed tumors on the small intestine, colon, liver, peritoneum and questionable small spots in the lungs. He did four rounds of Fulfiri and the cancer grew, threatening a blockage. He had a 10 hour surgery in early June where the surgeon was able to get 95% of the cancer in the abdominal area and he had an heated intraperitoneal chemo (nicknamed shake and bake) during surgery. The cancer that was left behind was on the pelvic floor (the surgeon would have had to remove his bladder and rectum resulting in two bags if he had taken all of it out). There was also a bit left on the spleen (I still don't get why he didn't remove the spleen) and inside of the liver. After a month, they put him on Folfox and then added avastin into the mix at six weeks. He had four rounds of this. The cancer stayed stable,the lungs did not change, but the doctor wanted to see if he could shrink it so he changed him to Folfoxiri + avastin. We thought surgery would be an option, but the surgeon said that the lungs were inoperable at this point. The first scans were stable, and Tony was excited about getting a chemo break with his last treatment on Dec. 3rd. The scan on Dec. 13th showed that the biggest tumor in the lungs had grown and there were new little spots on the lungs. Everything else was stable. A PET was ordered. A tiny tumor showed up on the femur. Yikes. Needless to say, we were devastated. He received one heavy dose of radiation on that spot which the doctors felt would be eradicated with no problems. His KRAS test showed mutation which will not help him with any standard treatment. Yesterday Tony got his first treatment (pill form) of a cutting edge targeted therapy at Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville. We both need to hear success stories from cancer survivors! Especially those people whose only help was in clinical trials.

hopeforcure49

Praying for Tony and your family
It must have been very hard to swallow so much at one time. I don't have much info, but I hope you find what you are looking for. Don't give up hope. There is an article on this site under HOPe posted on the 1/22. It's a story of a 100 yr old woman diagnosed in 1963 and is till alive. I'll keep you guys in my prayers. Blessings from Lourdes