How fast can cancer come back after a good CT

allackey
allackey Member Posts: 19
in Colorectal Cancer #1
My wife had metastatic colon cancer to her ovaries. Surgery then Chemo. NED for 18 months then recurrence. Went 6 rounds of chemo and CT showed NED. She has pains now (only 6 weeks after CT showed nothing). She went off of Chemo by choice. The pains are similar to a back pain, but like the pains she had when the cancer came back.
Question: Can cancer grow that fast, ie. in 6 weeks? She said she won't do chemo again (did Irinotican and Xeloda).
I'm worried, scared, confused. Husband

Comments

  • annalexandria
    annalexandria Member Posts: 2,571 Member
    #2
    My experience was similar to your wife's...
    I went through 6 months of chemo back in 2010 and had two CT scans that looked good, one at the halfway mark and one at the end. But at the same time I was having a lot of pain, which my doctor decided was due to scarring because the CT didn't show anything. I finished chemo in mid-August, was in increasing pain for the next 6 weeks or so, finally landed in ER when it got too bad to tolerate. At that point, I was given a PET which showed that I had a significant amount of cancer in the left side of the colon and small intestine, which was exactly where I had the pain. It was so bad that my surgeon thought he would just be doing palliative surgery, but once he got in, he found that he was able to get it all out. I've had two surgeries since then to remove a couple more tumors, and just had my first clean PET ever this last week. I no longer accept CT scans as a way to track my cancer; for whatever reason, they don't work for me, and it's PETs only from here on out. I hope you can get your wife checked more thoroughly asap. Ann
  • smokeyjoe
    smokeyjoe Member Posts: 1,425 Member
    #3
    annalexandria said:

    My experience was similar to your wife's...
    I went through 6 months of chemo back in 2010 and had two CT scans that looked good, one at the halfway mark and one at the end. But at the same time I was having a lot of pain, which my doctor decided was due to scarring because the CT didn't show anything. I finished chemo in mid-August, was in increasing pain for the next 6 weeks or so, finally landed in ER when it got too bad to tolerate. At that point, I was given a PET which showed that I had a significant amount of cancer in the left side of the colon and small intestine, which was exactly where I had the pain. It was so bad that my surgeon thought he would just be doing palliative surgery, but once he got in, he found that he was able to get it all out. I've had two surgeries since then to remove a couple more tumors, and just had my first clean PET ever this last week. I no longer accept CT scans as a way to track my cancer; for whatever reason, they don't work for me, and it's PETs only from here on out. I hope you can get your wife checked more thoroughly asap. Ann

    This post is scaring the
    This post is scaring the begeeeebers out of me. Ann just curious did they do colonoscopy at all, was the tumor in your colon or outside of it?? I mentioned one time to my onc. about having PET, he dismissed it, then he mentioned about radioactive contrast, etc. (I swear now he said those things to scare me out of it). I too had mets to ovaries and colon, scan this Wed., been off chemo since Oct.. I've had this feeling (bordering on pain, but not really pain, just a sensation kinda,) since surgery...all I can think is it's at the surgical resection site. If this scan is good only then will they do a colonoscopy....if it's not good I guess they figure what's the point.
  • annalexandria
    annalexandria Member Posts: 2,571 Member
    #4
    smokeyjoe said:

    This post is scaring the
    This post is scaring the begeeeebers out of me. Ann just curious did they do colonoscopy at all, was the tumor in your colon or outside of it?? I mentioned one time to my onc. about having PET, he dismissed it, then he mentioned about radioactive contrast, etc. (I swear now he said those things to scare me out of it). I too had mets to ovaries and colon, scan this Wed., been off chemo since Oct.. I've had this feeling (bordering on pain, but not really pain, just a sensation kinda,) since surgery...all I can think is it's at the surgical resection site. If this scan is good only then will they do a colonoscopy....if it's not good I guess they figure what's the point.

    No colonscopy...
    they felt the CT scan would show everything. My tumors seem to grow inside the wall of the colon in such a way that the CT has a hard time seeing them. If you can get a PET, I would...they may sometimes suggest things are worse than they are, but they don't usually miss things like apparently the CT can. That said, I still have weird feelings around the surgical site too, and as the PET was fine, I'm assuming it's just scarring. Hopefully yours will be the same!
  • peterz54
    peterz54 Member Posts: 341
    #5
    PET
    My wife got a combine PET/CT scan before beginning chemo. she has stage IV with a lot of cancerous liver. I am told, and could see for myself, how well the PET shows the cancer. My impression is that the combined PET/CT is far better than a CT alone.
  • annalexandria
    annalexandria Member Posts: 2,571 Member
    #6
    peterz54 said:

    PET
    My wife got a combine PET/CT scan before beginning chemo. she has stage IV with a lot of cancerous liver. I am told, and could see for myself, how well the PET shows the cancer. My impression is that the combined PET/CT is far better than a CT alone.

    I should clarify-
    when I say PET, I mean PET/CT.
  • smokeyjoe
    smokeyjoe Member Posts: 1,425 Member
    #7
    annalexandria said:

    I should clarify-
    when I say PET, I mean PET/CT.

    Just seems they really don't
    Just seems they really don't do that in Canada...well in Ontario anyway.
  • k1
    k1 Member Posts: 220 Member
    #8
    Neither CT nor PET scan showed my recurrence tumors
    Only an MRI showed my liver tumors. Both CT scan and PET scan were clear. After MRI showed tumors, they repeated the CT scan and it STILL didn't show any tumors. They did surgery anyway based only at the MRI, and the tumors they removed were definitely cancerous. Afterward they said if I had waited for surgery till they showed up on CT scan or PET scan it would have heen too late to remove them because one was dangerously close to a hepatic artery.

    So for me a clean CT scan doesn't really mean anything and they do MRIs now, but that is just me.

    I have just finished 6 months of chemo and will get my post-chemo MRIs of abdomen and pelvis and a CT scan of my lungs in a month.

    K1
  • janderson1964
    janderson1964 Member Posts: 2,215 Member
    #9
    My first recurrence showed
    My first recurrence showed up 3 months after a clean scan.
  • Kenny H.
    Kenny H. Member Posts: 502 Member
    #10
    janderson1964 said:

    My first recurrence showed
    My first recurrence showed up 3 months after a clean scan.

    Same here. Once done with
    Same here. Once done with chemo the 1st time only took 3 months (that I know of, scans every 3 months) for it to show up. 6mm mets to lungs.
  • annalexandria
    annalexandria Member Posts: 2,571 Member
    #11
    Kenny H. said:

    Same here. Once done with
    Same here. Once done with chemo the 1st time only took 3 months (that I know of, scans every 3 months) for it to show up. 6mm mets to lungs.

    Holy cow...
    this enire thread is kind of terrifying.

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