mozart13 wrote:Joecool1983 wrote: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.