We used CEA blood tests before and after surgery to look for missed tumors/mets , if that result is available, to reduce the risk of missing them further (assumes CEA yielding mets). Ditto the CA19-9 blood test for values even in the 20s but more scatter. We saw papers that if the tumor tissue stain...

In a situation like this some people add extras like big vitamin D and PSK to the xeloda. Getting the nodes out soonest while they are still small is an important option to consider, less invasive options like VATS. The oncologists often favor chemo/waiting but that may let an important opportunity ...

It is amazing that success right under their noses with survivors is so often ignored. Even if someone has one or two "lucky" factors - genes or incidental treatments like with cimetidine, why stop when you're 90% of the way there?

We've seen important mCRC benefits derive from targeted, off label drugs like cimetidine targeted with the CA19-9 biomarker, and presumably celecoxib, too. Other drugs, we've missed because they were not too compatible with chemotherapy. Recently I came across an entirely different class of drugs th...

Lack of performance based competition. A lot of the problem resides at FDA, ASCO and NCI from obsolete information and guidelines to irrational regulations and restrictions. The doctors aren't keeping up with their journals and individualized cases, rather the the sales reps still keep up with the d...

We need an awareness of the ever younger ages that this stuff occurs. We need to be able to intelligently prioritize personal attention to issues of health, personal environment and life styles, to spend the time to address these. Hopefully the beneficiaries will include our families and kids. I thi...

Thanks, Belle. It is always hard to know what will appeal due to need or common experience. A lot will be dependent on the reader's frame of mind and attention span. Although I am a caregiver, I identify with that misstaged brackets creeping, nails-on-chalk board feeling over a frustrating time peri...

It's the FDA and medical board enforced monopolies and restrictions that create hundred fold+ run away costs. Oral 5FU-LV for $10-20 month, sort of like Walmart's $4 Cipro (a fluoroquinolone antibiotic)? Not $2000-$6000 per month like X. A CA19-9 targeted avastin substitute, earlier at stage III, $4...

I have serious questions that his diet is that optimal. However, making radical changes during a 30 day runup to surgery might not be a bad recommendation.

I had a serious ticketing and booking error with AA two years ago right before their bankruptcy. Basically in the end I said their behaviors were acts of bankruptcy. So then I got lectures on them being the only airline being solvent and not to have gone bankrupt. Then they went bankrupt in 1-2 mont...

Skypup Welcome to Houston....PM me if you need anything. A gracious offer. For those who have been around the Texas Gulf Coast during especially inclement September weather when highways can turn into mighty rivers. One might imagine Skypup's PM, "a rubber dinghy, and two gallons of gas plz&qu...

PSK is Polysaccharide K , or Krestin, a water extract of a particular strain of Coriolus Versicolor mushroom, the leading cancer prescription in Japan for many years. Generic verisions are available in the US. Some use (cimetidine and) PSK as a lifelong immune stimulant, with or without chemo. While...

Sorry about the dirrhea, 95 chemo cycles is a lot of pounding on the gut. We've always addressed chemotherapy-induced mucositis and diarrhea nutritionally. Glutamine is the nutrient to restore epithelial cells that line the GI tract that might help with the -iri dirrhea. Some use cabbage juice in co...

I had been tipped off by an older friend who had been through an advanced cancer experience about a site with pages and webpages about a more global view of medicine and CAM, including colon cancer . I decided that non toxic additions with some literature might make sense to me. Likewise, mild or ge...

When we don't see enough bang out of the current immune therapies, we look and research harder, and then add more. Also we buy multimodal, aggressive surgery and a little chemo, so far. Really appreciate your blog, too.