ASTRO: Brain Metastases Common in Ovarian Cancer

california_artist said:

Rosey,
Hey, so, I've been wanting to give blood for the purpose of reducing both iron, copper and random cancer cell burden, but was told because I had cancer, I could not donate blood. Do you have a way to donate that might help me on this score. There are iron binding foods that could help lessen your iron levels. Tea will bind with iron rich foods if you take it at the same time you are eating that food. I assume you do not eat meat.

I've read that both cilantro and apples act as chelation agents.

Anyone have any thoughts on why taxol is not given at a reduced rate with shorter intervals inbetween?

HOW TO GIVE IRON TO LOWER YOUR STORES
Claudia,

Sorry I overlooked your question. There are at least two ways to get rid of blood; one is to "donate" it which we obviously can't do soon after a cancer diagnosis.

But there are actually protocols (I forget their names) for getting RID of small amounts of blood by draining about eight ounces of it as often as twice a week but more usually once a month. Your internist (and obviously a hematologist) can discuss these options with you.

I found some information about this online by Googling "iron overload disorders" or "what can I do about high ferritin levels"?

You'll see the outpatient procedures described in some articles there; it's very simply; instead of using an IV to receive blood, you're hooked up to GIVE it. The procedure is often used in patients who have a genetic prospensity for iron overload in diseases such as hemachromatosis (am sure I've mangled the spelling here as I hardly recall the exact term).

Bottom line: With a doctor's sanction, you CAN get rid of small amounts of blood to reduce your iron overload. The only exception is if your hemoglobin level is too low; they prefer it to be at least 12.

Love,
Rosey

gdpawel said:

the meticulous mind researching any and all data
Soromer and RoseyR

Dr. Harold J. Burstein, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Dr. Jaffer A. Ajani is a medical oncologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, wrote in the ASCO Daily News this past summer about cancer being a highly prevalent disease in the United States, and it is often diagnosed in advanced stages. Once the diagnosis of cancer is rendered, patients and their families are often bewildered to find out that most treatments are not curative for advanced cancers. Many patients prepare a list of questions for their oncologists about topics such as the use of chemosensitivity and resistance assays and the selection of chemotherapy agents.

It is very disappointing that many treatment regimens are not based on the specific characteristics of an individual patient’s tumor. Furthermore, the phenomenon of unpredictable outcomes from empiric therapy in patients with the same tumor type and stage is a widely recognized and frustrating problem for patients, their caregivers, and medical professionals. For patients, it is very disheartening to experience unpleasant treatment-related side effects but receive little or no benefit.

Good review papers exist on cell culture assays and are increasingly appreciated, understood and applied by the private sector and European clinicians and scientists. The literature on these assays have not been understood by many NCI investigators and by NCI-funded university investigators, because their "knowledge" was almost always geared toward an assay technique that hasn't been used in private labs for over twenty years now.

In fact, the technology in that old technique is being used today in one of the molecular profiling assays being sold to the public. A molecular test utilizing living cells, but generally of individual cancer cells in suspension, sometimes derived from tumors and sometimes derived from circulating tumor cells. However, this was tried with the human clonogenic assay, which had been discredited long ago.

The wife of a corporate CEO, with metastatic breast cancer, availed herself to the technology of chemosensitivity testing from one of the two functional profiling labs. She was at Sloan Kettering. As one would expect, the meticulous mind of a corporate CEO, researching any and all data, and asking the probing questions. You are probably not a corporate CEO, but sometimes a meticulous mind that researches all the data, can debunk any resistance from the likes of an academic cancer institution.

GOG's own Dr. David Alberts was quoted in a book: “There are 22 drugs that are FDA approved for ovarian cancer and it is absolute chaos, certainly in the second-line treatment of these patients, to determine what drug should be used. I can assure you that physicians are not infallible in this situation. On the other hand, I think what you’ve heard today is that the tests that we have available to us can lead us out of the wilderness. There is acceptable quality control and reproducibility, acceptable accuracy, and acceptable clinical utility of these tests, and this has been shown over and over and over again, for a variety of tumor types.

If you’re sitting in your office and you have specific information on the tumor of the patient that shows that nine out of ten drugs in the second-line treatment are associated with extreme drug resistance, and one is associated with sensitivity, and you’re going to see that patient in five minutes, would you choose to look at that data, would you be interested in that data, or would you like to avoid that data?

If patients were given the opportunity to really understand what the options were, there is no question that they would want to be treated according to the best knowledge that existed for them on the basis of their tumor.

Cancer is still primarily incurable but many new agents are available with activity. Their selection must be, not just should be, guided by data, not gut feelings. And unfortunately in oncology today – and I think you’re all aware of it – gut feelings are too pervasive in our selection of treatment. These tests should be covered.”

He was talking about cell-based cell culture assays. I couldn't agree more.

Greg

Thank you Greg!
I just want you to know how much I enjoy reading your posts....The information is fascinating and the way you present it is incredibly helpful in understanding some of the more highly technical aspects of the studies.

I am awed by your research abilities, your curiosity to keep looking and your responses to so many who have had questions!

Many thanks for all of your enlightening posts!

Karen