Update - HIPEC surgery??

Hi all,

Well, unfortunately, we didn't get the news that we were hoping for today. We picked up the PET/CT scans (no time to wait for the written report) from Dana Farber and brought them directly over to the HIPEC surgeon. He told us that the scans showed some tumor growth, but not too bad, so he scheduled the HIPEC operation for late March. However, after that appointment, we went back to Dana Farber to see Rick's oncologist. She told us that there was more cancer spread, the old tumor grew, a pelvic lymph node showed uptake, and the liver showed some uptake on the surgical margins of the prior liver resection (but no actual tumor). Soooo.....she doesn't feel as if the surgery would benefit him since the cancer is throughout his body due to it invading the lymphatic system. Therefore, she's going to discuss the test results and offer her opinion to the surgeon tomorrow or Friday. I don't need to tell you all how disappointing this was for us. It actually feels like a mule just kicked me in the stomach. :-(

Anyway, as an aside to this, after she was finished reviewing the results with us, I asked her if she knew of any new drugs about to go "live". She very excitedly told us that Regorafenib showed great promise with a significant extended survival period. I was a little skeptical of this statement since I had read that it only extended survival by two months. So, I asked, "Does the significant extended survival period mean two YEARS, or, two MONTHS?" She then looked at me curiously and said, "Well, two months, but that is statistically very significant!!" Um, well, not really my dear doctor - at least not enough to get that excited about. Sigh... So, here we sit awaiting news on whether or not the surgeon believes that another HIPEC surgery will be of benefit, or if he'll change his mind now that he has the written report on all of the new details. As always, time will tell... Luv to all, Cyn