UPSC recurrence notes - You are doing so well ..."

positivenergy said:

UPSC: NEW TO THIS SITE
I have been reading all your notes for some time now and my heart is with all of you. I finally decided to post here, hoping to find some advise.

My mother, who is now 65, very healthy (never had any issues in the past except that her doctor gave her HRT Hormone Raplacement Therapy for 5 years during menopause from 1997-2002, which is a known cause of Endmetrial Cancer). A year ago, in May 2008, she had abnormal bleeding and after PT Scan was diagnosed with UPSC, Stage 1C. She immediately had a total Hysterectomy by lyposcopic surgery and began chemotherapy from late June 2008-October 2008 Carboplatin 1hr, Paclitaxel 3 hrs, every 3 weeks for 6 treatments. In Nov 2008, her PT scan looked clean, the cancer had never broken the line of the uterus. The doctor told us there was a 5% chance the cancer would come back since she had completed chemo.

Six months later in early June 2009, she started to have pain and on June 24, 2009 her PT Scan confirmed multiple hypermetabolic lesions throughout the liver, increased activity within the left iliac bone, suspicious for bone metastic lesion. She immediately began a second round of chemo from June 30-Oct 2009, Carboplatin 50mg & Doxorubicin 10mg. In early October 2009, just before her 4th treatment, her blood level, which had steadily been falling, shot up from 800 to 2000. She began to also have pains on the side but her doctor still gave her the 5th treatment. Just before her 6th treatment, on October 20, 2009, her blood level was now 3000, so her doctor did an MRI which showed the cancer was growing again and had become immune to the chemo. He postponed her 6th treatment that was scheduled for October 23, 2009 and sent her to a liver specialist, who did not see surgery as an option but suggested RadioEmbolization Sir Spheres (Selected Internal Radiation) with Nuclear Medicine.

The insurance just approved the RadioEmbolization and she will have the mock procedure done on Tuesday, November 17, 2009. If it is a sucess, she will have the procedure done just after thanksgiving.

Her oncologist is also trying to get approval for Avistan but may start giving her weekly Tobotokan. IS there anyone here who has UPSC that spread to the Liver? Has anyone had success with Radioembolization? Tobotikan? Avistan?

I was also recommended to try Molecular Diagnosis Target Now at www.Carisdx.com, sending tissue under cat scan of the new cancer growing for test results based on genetic make-up to give list of drugs that might be affective. However, when we discussed with her oncologist they were not quick to agree to caris, they had doubts about ligitamacy and brushed off as a waste of time. They said if we wanted it done, they could do it but we would need to arrange the shipment of the cancer tissue to be tested because they do not handle that. Has anyone sent tissue to caris or another center for molecular diagnosis? received positive information? suggestions on how to arrange shipment?

Thank you in advance for any advise and my heart and prayers and hope is with all of you here on this site.