Anyone have ablation that worked?

[mpbser]

Has anyone here had a percutaneous ablation (microwave, cryo, RFA, etc) that got you NED? My husband is scheduled for microwave ablation for one or two possible mets on his liver January 22nd and we still are not sure if he should do that or explore other, more likely successful, options.

[Gravelyguy]

Hi Mpbser,

At diagnosis, I had 2 mets to my liver. After 4 rounds of chemo with Vectibix, they resected one met and RFA-ed the 2nd. No recurrence so far!

I did respond very well to the chemo-Vectibix combo as in the resected tumor was dead when they biopsied it.

Hope this helps.

Dave

[stevieb]

I've had 5 lung cryoablations of the past 3 years and no local reoccurrence yet.

[LPL]

Thank you stevieb, for sharing your experience, good result.
I hope you will be for ever NED !

[juliej]

I would wait for the new MRI results from MSK before committing to an ablation. Their machines can detect subcentimetric metastases. Hopefully, you'll find out they are just hemangiomas or something benign. Fingers crossed for you!

Juliej

[mpbser]

Oh, yeah, for sure we are not going to go ahead at MGH before getting MSK MRI results. Good to know how powerful their MRIs are!

"Hopefully, you'll find out they are just hemangiomas or something benign." YES! Hoping and praying!

[mpbser]

P.S. Last night, my husband and I finally had the time to talk through our current decision-making needs and created an algorithm for working through them. Tricky and complicated but he does not want to risk any gap in his treatment. It was really good to brainstorm because we've been on non-stop for the past few weeks.

[juliej]

P.S. Last night, my husband and I finally had the time to talk through our current decision-making needs and created an algorithm for working through them. Tricky and complicated but he does not want to risk any gap in his treatment. It was really good to brainstorm because we've been on non-stop for the past few weeks.

Great idea!!! I made a 'decision tree' to help sort out the pro's and con's of my choices. One time, though, I went with my "gut" instinct instead of a rational decision. It ended up being the right thing to do, which proves I guess that we're not just analytical bots but have some instinctive feelings too.

I agree about not risking any gap in his treatment. I know too many patients who've had their cancer get out-of-control (and beyond the possibility of surgery) while they took time off to make decisions.

You're doing the right thing with your research and conversations about your upcoming decisions!

Juliej

[mpbser]

BTW, thanks for mentioning hemangiomas earlier, juliej. I had not heard of them before. I did some reading about them this morning. Very interesting stuff!

[mpbser]

Reading about hemangiomas, I came across this:

On MRI, the typical appearance is a well-demarcated, homogenous lesion, hypointense on T1-weighted images and hyperintense on T2-weighted images, the “cotton-wool” aspect [27]. Because both malignancy and HH are hyperintense on T2-weighted images, the differentiation is done by increasing the echo time (TE): while the signal from malignant lesions tends to decrease, the one from HH increases [28]. Diffusion-weighted images are also useful in differentiating HH from malignant lesions.