Colon perforation

Woodytele

Has anyone experienced a colon perforation (hole) in their colon probably due to the Avastin, if so how was it treated?

any help appreciated. 

bobby66

Hi,

Hi,

I didnt get the perforation, but was very close. I had very bad pain in the stomach and was admitted to the hospital. I think that the only way to be fixed is with surgery but I'm not sure. What I hate is that i told my Onc that i thought Avastin was doing this and she told me that those were not side effects of avastin. Anyway i told her i dont want any more avastin and she took it out of my cocktail. Thank God because it was making me feel real sick. In the hospital they just gave me medicine for the pain and that it was going to go away on its own, but like i said I did not get the perforation.

lp1964

Dear Friend,

As far as I know Avastin doesn't directly cause colon perforation. It slows down the blood vessel formation for the cancer therefore slows down the growth. Cutting off the blood supply to the cancer can create tissue death, scar tissue and sometimes perforation. So Avastin indirectly causes perforation. By the way that is the problem with a lot of non surgical cancer treatment including chemo, radiation, immunotherapy, Avastin etc. What happens with all the dead cancer and surrounding tissue before the body can slowly get rid of this damaged tissue and heal itself. This is a huge challenge even for the most cancer specific treatments.

Sadly, no no matter how "barbaric" surgery is cutting out the cancer and often leaving the patient deformed and with many functional issues, today surgery is still the gold standard of cancer treatment. Let's hope that this will change soon and especially cancer prevention(diet, environment, lifestyle etc.) will be the forefront of avoiding cancer to begin with.

All the best!

Laz