Completed 6/12 rounds of FU5 chemo (and surgery) - now DOC says I need to add immunology therapy?

niktaeb

Hello all and thanks for taking the time. I was diagnosed with 3c colon cancer in JAN 2025. Went through initial four rounds of chemo, followed by surgery to remove a 10 cm tumor (shrunk to 6 cm after 4 treatments, but then increased to nearly original size before surgery. Pretty feisty) . cancerous. It was a 10 hour procedure done with robotics and a fine hand).

Post surgery CT Scan showed NOTHING that could be called cancerous that remained.

Since then I've done 2 additional chemo sessions and now the doctor wants to add immunology (or immunotherapy?) treatment.

I'm just wondering how common that is, and whether it's an indicator of something foul and lurking?

bibliophile

Without more specifics, but given that you were IIIC, I can share what was true of me. I was diagnosed IIIC in June 2023, discovered the tumor when they did surgery for what they thought was an abscess and found cancer instead. They were able to remove everything visible, but still did 6 months of CAPEOX (oral version of Folfox) afterwards because mine had penetrated the colon wall into surrounding tissues and also had perineural and lymph node involvement with some lung nodules that were too small to classify. Since I had a higher risk of recurrence, they did chemo to try and destroy anything that might be left. Fast forward some… I am back in chemo and now that they have genetic sequencing on my tumor, they are also going to add another drug to my current chemo. It takes some time to get the genetics back, so maybe they were waiting for that information before deciding on immunotherapy. Wishing you the best on everything!