Avastin only for maintenance?

SF73 said:

At the beginning of my chemo

At the beginning of my chemo treatment, my oncologist thought I would benefit from Avastin in addition to Carbo/Taxol. My insurance company denied coverage. So I investigated how much it would cost to cover the expenses out of pocket. If I remember it right, the dosage was something like 850 mg/ infusion. And the price they quoted was $14K per session. Not sure if that was inclusive of the service or just the medication. Not affordable for us at all. I really hope Medicare will continue covering it. You can also reach out to genentech (the manufacturer) and see if they have a compassionate drug usage policies. I ended up taking only carbo/taxol and Metformin. Metformin does have some anti-angiogenesis qualities (like Avastin) so hoped that it would be sufficient.

You can also have a diet rich in food with anti-angiogenesis qualities. William Li has a famous TED talk about this topic. Here is the link. At around the 13 min mark he talks about how some food items have more anti-angiogenesis qualities than some cancer drugs in the market. Hope this helps. 

I found this very interesting.  I wish the list of foods was left up longer so  I could have jotted them down.  I found it interesting that strawberries were on the list because strawberries are on the dirty dozen list for foods that can't have the pesticides washed off of them no matter how much you wash them.  At the hospital where I had my surgery, one of the GYN/oncs gave a speech at a cancer survivors' dinner telling us to avoid foods on that list.  Dr. Li should have suggested buying them organically grown.

I also found it interesting that statins were supposed to be helpful in preventing angiogenesis.  I've been on statins for years for hyperlipidemia and I eat a number of foods on the list, but my cancer still came back.  Maybe I should be eating nothing but those foods. 

I am on Avastin only as maintenance. I had cycle #12 in March and my Onco wanted to scan and talk about stopping Avastin if the scan was clear. She said there was proof that doing more would have any benefit. My argument was that we started Avastin not knowing if it would have benefit either but we started it anyway. I had a scan in April that showed slight enlargement (just under 2cm) in two tph modes. The Onco attributed this to the difference between two radiologist reading each scan and not true progression. She doidnt want to stop Avastin however and said we would scan again in Sept/Oct to check the two nodes. In late April the lower back pain I have had for a couple years escalated to the point that I couldn’t walk without screaming in pain. A CT showed what at first was believed to be a met on my spine but when looked at closer with an MEI was a benign cyst that was impinging the nerve bundle in my low back and severely narrowing the spinal column  Long story short I had to take a break from Avastin to have a PLIF surgery to remove the cyst and fuse L4, L5, and the tailbone in early May.  I am starting Avastin infusions again on the 29th of June. I am not on Medicare but my insurance has already been denying just the Avastin drug and after aomemfighting and additional aperwoek they approve it but it takes a few months. Each infusion for Avastin (just the drug) is billed at $38k before any discounts. I hope I don’t have any issues with insurance as we begin treatment again.