Horrible decision to make.

rmkbrad said:

Stopped the meds
My boys are 11, 6, and 3. I am 44, I waited to have kids, Navy, College and then I needed to grow up myself and be able to be the father that I thought a child would need. I am envolved in all their activities and support them in any way we can. My thought with the meds is if the rads and chemo suppress my immune system, hopefully my kidney will make it through, I have been on dialysis once and if I have to do it again I will be able to see my kids grow up one more day at a time. With the stem cell research bill signed I can hope somthing will come about in my lifetime that will help me and those millions of people on dialysis. I have not had internet while in SF but will get a new phone while I at home this weekend. Thanks for all your input.

Brad

HeartofSoul said:

Brad, you had mentioned your
Brad, you had mentioned your radiologist has treated other transplant recipients’ and told me that the ones on immunosuppressant’s had cancer come back 100%

When I applied for my 2 pancreas organ transplants, one in 2001 at Univ of Minn and the second in 2004 at UCSF. I had an opportunity to get my answers from both a Dr consulataion with a transplant surgeon and and written reports by those medical centers on the chances of developing cancer after taking immuno suppressant meds as prograf, cellcept, rapamune and prednizone.

I was also curious to research what other studies showed and have some references below:


http://www.ucsf.edu/science-cafe/articles/skin-cancer-hidden-risk-for-transplant-patients/
speaks mainly of of squamous cell carcinoma


http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/9/294

Cardiovascular illnesses and neoplasms are the two main causes of death with normal function of the graft in the long-term follow-up of patients who have received kidney transplants. The Australian-New Zealand register even suggests that the second factor could be growing at a faster rate than the first. The presence of neoplasms (cancer) is a major threat and cause of morbidity in kidney transplant patients.

According to data published in other countries, the accumulated incidence of neoplasms can reach 20% 10 years from the transplant and nearly 30% after 20 years. The rate of expected cancers compared to those which are observed varies in the different registers. On average, it is estimated that the incidence of cancer in patients who have received kidney transplants is 3 times higher than that for the general population. By localizations, this ratio can reach an incidence rate of between 8 and 14 times more for kidney cancer in transplant patients, and an incidence of between 65 and 92 times more of non-melanoma skin tumours. In the largest study on the incidence rates of malignancies among first-time recipients of deceased or living donor kidney transplantation (n = 35765) the rates for most malignancies are higher after kidney transplantation compared with the general population. Similar results were observed in studies from five national tumour registries in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Australia, and Canada with a total sample size of 31,977 transplant recipients.

Several factors may influence in the pathogenesis of tumours after transplantation: chronic uraemic status, cumulative exposure to immunosupression, and certain drugs which can be carcinogenic through independent mechanisms or as a result of immunosupression and viral infections. Some authors suggest that immune deficiency, rather than other risk factors for cancer, is responsible for the increased risk.

Squamous cell cancer of the skin affects about 30 percent of kidney transplant patients after ten years of immunosuppression,"



Also refer to link below

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10818-kidney-transplants-linked-to-tripled-risk-of-cancers.html

People who have had a kidney transplant are three times more likely to develop any of a wide range of cancers, a new study finds.

The researchers think immune-suppressing drugs taken by the patients are to blame. The results also suggest that, in the general population, viruses may cause more cancers than previously believed.

Claire Vajdic at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and colleagues looked at cancer rates in more than 28,000 patients before and after they received a kidney transplant.

It was already known that transplantation increases the risk of three cancers: non-melanoma skin cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Kaposi sarcoma.

But the team found that after a kidney transplant, cancer rates at 25 sites in the body increased significantly, compared to what would be expected in the general population. For 18 of the sites - including the tongue, penis, eye and nasal cavity - the increased risk was threefold or more.

Leukaemia boost
The discovery "strongly suggests a role for the immune system in the prevention of cancer at a much broader range of sites than we had previously believed", says Vajdic, who believes the immune-suppressing drugs led to the rise in tumours.

Viruses are known to be linked to some cancers, including cervical cancer, which is caused by the human papillomavirus. The researchers also found increased rates of post-transplant cancer at four sites for which a link to HPV has been suggested, including the eye and the oesophagus, suggesting that HPV vaccines may prevent more types of cancer than had been hoped.

For some of the other cancers, such as leukaemia, researchers have suggested that a virus or other infection might possibly be involved. The increased rate of leukaemia seen in the study participants after transplantation supports this theory, Vajdic says.

Sunlight exposure
On the other hand, the team found no post-transplant increase in breast or prostate cancers, indicating, contrary to some suggestions, that viruses or other infections may not be a cause of these cancers.

But for at least one of the cancers highlighted in the study, there is every reason to believe a virus is not blame. The team found an increased risk for melanoma of the skin, which is clearly associated with exposure to sunlight but not with any infection. It is possible that a depressed immune system could somehow interact with sun exposure to increase the melanoma risk, Vajdic speculates.

Patients with kidney failure are four times more likely to die if they stay on dialysis than if they have a transplant, so the work does not mean that patients should reconsider a transplant, Vajdic stresses.

Nevertheless patients should be on high alert for any warning signs of cancer. And in the meantime, researchers are working on immune-suppressing drugs that should not increase the cancer risk, she says.

rmkbrad said:

New update
They, the doctors decided to try to save my kidney, sort of. They put me on a different antirejection med that also helps fight cancer, and are using the chemo as an immunosupresant. Tried the Taxol and had an alergic reaction to it, so they gave me the carboplatin and it was ok, but now I cannot sleep. My mind is going all the time, like I drank a pot of coffee and am on some cafine high. I need good sleep. No more taste of food after two weeks radiation, I am making myself eat though, only lost 5 pound in two weeks. I have a little saliva left, but up here in Nevada with the dry climate I notice that my mouth dries up alot faster than down in the bay area. 4 more chemos and 5 weeks of radiation to go.

Brad

D Lewis said:

Glad to hear about the kidney
Brad;

I'm glad the doctors are going to at least try to save your kidney. I hope they succeed. Sounds like you and I remain on parallel paths. I'm on cisplatin rather than carboplatin, and I did notice that the anti-nausea meds made me jangled and nervous, and it was hard to sleep. I only get two more rounds of chemo, so I'm going to try to tough it out, but you might mention the nerves to your doctor. Maybe they can prescribe something. I have six weeks of radiation to go, taste and saliva just about gone, subsisting mostly on a cold liquid diet of smoothies and shakes. Lost one pound in week 1, and I know I lost some this week; my face is thinner. My doctor also put me on Nexium, which has taken care of the bad acid reflux I got from both the chemo and rads. I believe it has made it easier for me to eat and has helped my gag reflex.

My thoughts are with you as we slowly work our way through this process. We will succeed.

warmly,

Deb L.