Peritoneal Carcinomatosis
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 10:11 pm
Hello all,
This is my first post here but I have lurked for quite a while. I have some questions that I haven't found answers to yet. Here is our story in a nutshell... Husband was diagnosed last October (2014) with colon cancer with mets to the peritoneum/omentum. His MDA oncologist said he was filled with peri mets and had it "stem to stern". He said his disease was way too extensive to even consider surgery. But no mets to liver, lungs, etc...So he did 6 rounds Folfox+Avastin. CT showed growth so he was switched to Folfiri+Cetuximab. He did 19 rounds of that and CT was the same-showed no growth or shrinking. In the meantime he had another colonoscopy bc they were afraid of blockage and wanted to get a better look. They found the primary completely gone. In Aug he had a PET that showed no metabolic activity but the CT showed his belly is still full of disease. He is now on just the Irenotecan for maintenance until the end of October. The local onc says this is great news. The MDA onc says they don't use PET to measure this type of disease and says he is still very much full of cancer. Oh and blood looks good but CEA has been rising. Its at 5 now. Was at 2 when diagnosed.
Questions:
1. Can the PET show no hyper metabolic activity and yet still have active cancer?
2. How important is the CEA?
3. Can the CEA rise but the cancer be inactive?
4. Anyone else out there with CRC with peri mets only? No mets in liver, etc??
Thanks for reading!
This is my first post here but I have lurked for quite a while. I have some questions that I haven't found answers to yet. Here is our story in a nutshell... Husband was diagnosed last October (2014) with colon cancer with mets to the peritoneum/omentum. His MDA oncologist said he was filled with peri mets and had it "stem to stern". He said his disease was way too extensive to even consider surgery. But no mets to liver, lungs, etc...So he did 6 rounds Folfox+Avastin. CT showed growth so he was switched to Folfiri+Cetuximab. He did 19 rounds of that and CT was the same-showed no growth or shrinking. In the meantime he had another colonoscopy bc they were afraid of blockage and wanted to get a better look. They found the primary completely gone. In Aug he had a PET that showed no metabolic activity but the CT showed his belly is still full of disease. He is now on just the Irenotecan for maintenance until the end of October. The local onc says this is great news. The MDA onc says they don't use PET to measure this type of disease and says he is still very much full of cancer. Oh and blood looks good but CEA has been rising. Its at 5 now. Was at 2 when diagnosed.
Questions:
1. Can the PET show no hyper metabolic activity and yet still have active cancer?
2. How important is the CEA?
3. Can the CEA rise but the cancer be inactive?
4. Anyone else out there with CRC with peri mets only? No mets in liver, etc??
Thanks for reading!