Husband ending chemo at 3 months

Treatment options are so very personal. Your husband,  and all of us who have fallen victim to this disease, we know our bodies better than any physician. I only endured neo-adjuvent chemo pills and 28 radiation treatments. I am stage 4 but opted to just seek alternatives to the heavy duty chemo. I am pleased to say I am finally starting to feel well again, 9 months after diagnosis, and 4 months post surgery. 

Quality of life is so important! My feet are still cold sensitive from taking Xeloda which I stopped taking last August! 

I wish you both wellness and peace during recovery. And long life!

Sincerely,  Beth

There are a number of papers that relate to this over the years.  Basically, what they imply is that treatment intensity is more important than duration for eradication of the last residual cancer cells following locally curative treatment, like surgery. 

Two important caveats: 

1.  Treatment intensity doesn't have to be related to side effects e.g. for some types of CRC cells,  5FU + cimetidine, aspirin, metformin and/or celeoxib (Celebrex) may be more effective molecular poisons than 5FU+oxaliplatin (folfox), with far less side effects.  However, the minimum treatment time is less well established for these agents.

2.  For many mCRC situations, chemo forever is the best that can be done currently.  When stage IV patients are misdiagnosed as at lower stages, or patients progress/recur quickly,  the shorter treatment can fail sooner and catastrophically if better monitoring is not in place.  This area is a failure zone in NCCN and ASCO guidelines.   The shorter treatment may also allow closer blood monitoring became of less organ and cell damage, with less distortion and recovery time for blood tests.    NCCN acknowledges 2 month blood testing may have demonstrated better OS than 3 month test intervals in the previous standard of care treatment with 6 months folfox.  I suspect time will show 2 month bloodwork intervals' survival advantage more clearly.  Likewise a scan at 6-7 months might be prudent. 

Also your husband might recover quicker with good supplementation on common deficiencies in cancer patients or get his immune function improved with high potency supplements.  Many supplement programs fail to be high potency in my eyes.  

SophDan2 said:

Can only share my story

Like your husband, I wanted to stop afte the 6th of 12 planned treatments ovber a 6 month period. I saw that study about the 3 vs. 6 months and discussed it with my onc. She recommended reducing the chemo but staying on treatments for all 12. I was diagnosed with stage 3C, which is why she strongly recommended stying the course.

I am glad that I listened to her, as I completed all 12 treatments with adjustments to the Oxaliplatin for the final 3 treatments. I do still have slight neuropathy, but after my first CT Scan since treatment ended back in November, I was just told yesterday that I am clean. I truly believe that if I had stopped treatments after #6, the results would have been different.

Whatever your husband decides, I hope that it is best for him.

Thank you. I took a break for 8 weeks from chemo so that I could get my liver lesions out. it felt so good to have all the side effects cleared out, that my brain obviously went to, do I need 8 more rounds. I did 4 before my surgery. Now, I know, for me, it is better to finish in hopes of getting clean scans from now on. Thanks for saying you didn't want to but did it anyway.

I have #4 (Xeloda) in a few hours so that would be half-way through. It is very tough and I'm thinking that 6/8 would be good for me but I need to look at the research so your post is helpful in identifying some of it. One major problem is how busy I am. My wife has requested that I find a document that is worth about $15K for a transaction and I don't have a lot of time to find it so there's a lot of pressure in my life and the chemo really impedes the amount I can get done in work and life. The neuro stuff is annoying and worrisome as well. I have had constant hands/feet stuff since the second cycle and worry that it may be permanent. I will discuss that with oncologist this morning.  I cut myself on a microwave door dart yesterday and there was a little bleeding but that stuff doesn't heal well on chemo so I have a nice bandage on the back of my left hand. I changed the big bandage on my right forearm from falling down the stairs a week ago. I didn't see any infection and it is healing but I expect healing to be slow. There is a bruise mark in addition to the red areas.

So yes, I do understand your husband's case. I'm also T3N1/Stage 3B.

Shiraz, I'm glad to hear he is stopping.  Was he on the Oxaliplatin / Foflox chemo? 

I hve stage 4 colon cancer and I only had 8 rounds of Folfox as was directed by Axel Grothey who I saw at Mayo clinic in Rochester. He does alot of research and is one of the best Colorectal Oncologists in the world.  He said the risk of long term side effects goes up and there isn't much benefit after the 8 rounds.  My oncologist at home clinic wanted me to take like 16 rounds.  I don't know why so many doctors prescribe it for so long. 

After the 8 rounds, I went on maintainence chemo of Avastin and Xeloda.  My oncologist said that stopped working for me. 

I had one round of Folfiri on January 26th and ended up in the hospital.  I was treated for Colitis, and C-diff but then found out all tests were negative so the Colitis was caused by inflamation from the Folfiri.

THe Folfiri also caused my gallbladder to become inflamed and I got a referral to Mayo Clinic for my gallbladder. I'm having a gall bladder procedure called ECRP next week at mayo.

My oncologist said we will figure out another chemo that I may tolerate better.   

Hope your husband does well!  

He's lucky to have a good caretaker.