Doctors are giving up?

akersr27

My best friend was diagnosed with cervical cancer last year and had a complete hysterectomy which they told her would get rid of the cancer completely. 3 weeks after her hysterectomy they did a scan and found that the cancer had spread prior to the surgery into her lymph nodes and ordered a hybrid of radiation and chemo treatments. After the radiation therapy, they had gotten all of the cancer in her nodes to stay away, but the tumor which originally resided on her cervix had returned and grown to be 5cm big. Since October 2011 they have been treating the tumor with chemo and she was given a grim diagnosis by her team of doctors yesterday stating that the tumor is not shrinking at all, its also not growing due to the chemo, but they told her there is nothing more they can do for her. They said if they remove the tumor it would just grow back. She is a mess, as anyone would be with this news. She is 29, has two children and is just scared. I told her I would try and find her a support group and some alternative treatments that anyone has heard of that she may be able to bring to her doctor's attention. She is also going for a second opinion at Sloan Kettering in NYC and I wanted her to have this alternative treatment info for that meeting on Tuesday as well. Does anyone know of any? Have you had other treatments that may work for something like this? Any suggestions would help, I appreciate it!

ccfighter

Hi Akersr27,
I am sorry
Hi Akersr27,
I am sorry about your friend. I am glad that she is going for a second opinion. I find it strange that they did not do a lymph node disection at her initial surgery for staging. That is standard practice. It is good that the radiation was effective on her lymph nodes. Did she do brachytherapy? What chemo combo has she been on? I assume cisplatin with the radiation, but what has followed? She is so young and I hope that you find a team of doctors that are willing to fight this aggressively to the end, and I hope the end is remission for a long long time. There is always hope and a new set of eyes on the problem will do good I believe. What type of cervical cancer did she have? Squamous? Adenocarcioma? Small cell? Neoendocrin? Sometimes specific cell types respond to particular treatments better than others. I will pray for your friend and her family and her darling children that deserve a healthy mom to raise them. Please feel free to ask questions and vent here. Cancer sucks.

akersr27

ccfighter said:

Hi Akersr27,
I am sorry
Hi Akersr27,
I am sorry about your friend. I am glad that she is going for a second opinion. I find it strange that they did not do a lymph node disection at her initial surgery for staging. That is standard practice. It is good that the radiation was effective on her lymph nodes. Did she do brachytherapy? What chemo combo has she been on? I assume cisplatin with the radiation, but what has followed? She is so young and I hope that you find a team of doctors that are willing to fight this aggressively to the end, and I hope the end is remission for a long long time. There is always hope and a new set of eyes on the problem will do good I believe. What type of cervical cancer did she have? Squamous? Adenocarcioma? Small cell? Neoendocrin? Sometimes specific cell types respond to particular treatments better than others. I will pray for your friend and her family and her darling children that deserve a healthy mom to raise them. Please feel free to ask questions and vent here. Cancer sucks.

Hi ccfighter, thank you for
Hi ccfighter, thank you for your response and prayer. I am not sure of all the details as far as types of treatment or cancer, I will get that info from her. I read some of the posts here and was able to give her a list of research topics to discuss with her doctors tomorrow at Sloan Kettering. I am hoping the new set of eyes on the cancer will help get her some new answers that are more positive!!