Postby Eternal optimist » Sat Sep 07, 2019 5:00 pm
Siti wrote:Eternal optimist wrote: This is why you should have chemo first before any targeted treatment.
Hi Eternal optimist,
I was wondering what do you mean by doing chemo first before any targeted treatment, do you mean targeted antibodies or did you mean removal of LNs?
Regards,
Siti
Sorry I missed this Siti, I've been busy and away from the site over the summer. By targeted treatment I meant surgery or radiotherapy targeted at the nodes. Looking back now I realise it was a very confusing word to use when not talking about targeted therapies! Sorry for that too.
For many people para aortic lymph node mets are a bit like the advance guard of an army. A person has a scan that shows up PALN mets, then by their next scan they have had mets pop up in their organs or in more distant lymph nodes. This doesn't happen to everyone, some people just have a PALN recurrence without other mets growing soon afterwards. But to minimize the risk of more mets appearing it is better to have a systemic treatment ( like chemo, avastin or cetuximab) that will also treat any mets that are too small to see on a scan, than to give localised treatment to the PALN mets you can see.
Diagnosed age 34 in Feb 2015, sigmoid tumour & PALNs
CapOx Mar-Oct 15
Resection of colon and PALNs Dec 15 -T3a N2 M1a
Xeloda Apr- Nov 16
Dec 16 - PALN recurrence, Radiotherapy
Aug 17 - FDG uptake in para aortic and retro peritoneal nodes, peritoneum, ovary plus small nodues on lungs. Only enlarged PALNs and small lung nodules visible on CT, but possible spine mets seen.
Sept 17 Folfiri and Cetuximab
April 18 NED
July 18 -surgery to examine what turned out to be a benign peritoneal inclusion cyst