Quitting chemo

[Joecool1983]

When is an appropriate time to quit Chemotherapy?

[NHMike]

Are you on pre-surgical chemo or post? You should have had a general plan of treatment from your oncologist to give you an idea of what they do, when they do it, and for how long.

[Basil]

I know MDAnderson is taking to heart the recent findings that 6 rounds of adjuvant FOLFOX is nearly as effective as 12. I was originally scheduled for the full 12 but had the last six cancelled after my stage iii tumor was found to be low risk.

[mozart13]

When is an appropriate time to quit Chemotherapy?

Talk to your oncologist, folfox is not easy, specially after surgery, statisticlly only 60% of people that had surgery complete chemo.
There is option to deacrease dose, change chemo, etc.
Another statistic that doesnt work in favor of not to have chemo is , 70% of any cancer comes back within 2 years if treated only surgically.

Good luck to you!

[benben]

When is an appropriate time to quit Chemotherapy?

Talk to your oncologist, folfox is not easy, specially after surgery, statisticlly only 60% of people that had surgery complete chemo.
There is option to deacrease dose, change chemo, etc.
Another statistic that doesnt work in favor of not to have chemo is , 70% of any cancer comes back within 2 years if treated only surgically.

Good luck to you!

Not sure about the 70% recurrence with surgery alone.
With CRC from what my ONC told me and I've seen other statistics backing this up online is about 35-45% depending on stage/grade/etc.
I was told I'd have about 35% chance of recurrence without chemo. Chemo would reduce that to 10-15% based on my surgery outcome, pathology of tumor, my age and overall health.

There is the ASCO report that suggests 6 treatments for stage 3a/b is almost as effective as 12.
However all the studies prior suggest 8 treatments are needed for efficacy. 9 - 12 seem to add only .5% increased reduction rate of recurrence.
So if you have pretty heavy neuropathy, I probably would stop at 8. For me neuropathy is minor issue. Its my blood counts that are tanked.

I had ULAR resection prior to chemo. Seems to not be the norm with most folks. My surgeon was confident in margins so decided I should do surgery first.
He did get very clean margins on the resection side of things at 1.5 inches of non-cancerous tissue on both sides. My tumor was t3 and was only .1 mm from wall.
So based on that and one infected lymphnode - chemo was a given.

but of course always consult your onc.

[Joecool1983]

I had 8 Treatments of FOLFOX last year, post surgery between May and October. It ended up spreading though. In January of this year, a routine CT scan found 3 Metastases on the liver

[Soccermom2boys]

I am guessing they will try a different combination such as Folfiri. However, there have been some on here who had no success with FOLFOX, etc, but their genetic makeup made immunotherapy a much better choice. Keytruda is now an FDA approved drug for fighting cancer, something to consider.

Please come back and share with us what you find out from your onc about how to proceed. Will keep you in my thoughts.

[TXLiz]

Edited bc I didn't see your second post.
Do you mean when is the best time to say hey I have had enough, no more treatment?

[Joecool1983]

Edited bc I didn't see your second post.
Do you mean when is the best time to say hey I have had enough, no more treatment?

Yes, that is exactly what I meant. To give an update, I stopped chemotherapy in the beginning of August. Been off of it for going on 3 months now. It was just taking a major toll on my physical and mental well-being. I was extremely sensitive to the Irinotecan. I had to cut to half dose. And still that made me violently ill. And the explosive diarrhea was horrible also. Also, the anti-nausea meds they gave me caused uncontrollable hiccups. They tried to switch me to Xeloda, but I still felt a feeling of nausea. And by that time I was just done. Too fried. I feel a lot better since. More energy. Sexual functioning has improved. Better mood. Less anxiety.

[Sharing Hope]

Hi, JoeCool1983--

I empathize with your reaction to chemo. I'm only 4 treatments in and wonder how I'm going to manage the rest of the chemo plan.

Do you know the mutation of the liver tumors from testing? This is also important to know for targeted treatment.