Postby fumaros » Wed May 17, 2017 1:24 pm
It is terrible that every cancer seems to have it's own unique twist, some more than others.
HIPEC is not definitive as to whether it has an overall benefit, but it is a recommended treatment. However, chemo has good results for killing cancer cells. It is unfortunate you can't do both at the same time, probably because of the increased risks of bleeding and inhibited healing caused by chemo. I am not a doctor and I am not making a recommendation, but the decision by your physicians sounds sound (for lack of a better word). The chemo starts fighting the cancer now, and chemo has a proven record for killing cancer cells. Systemic chemo has a stronger track record for successfully killing cancer cells than HIPEC. If you both decide to do HIPEC now, they will stop the chemo, plan for the surgery, and then he would have to recover from the surgery - all of which will take weeks, in the mean time since he had positive lymph nodes there might be cancer cells in other areas of his body than the bowels that need to be killed. It is a hard choice still.
I had my port put in and had an access needle placed in the port at the same time (i ended up with a rather large bandage), but this way I was allowed to start chemo less than two days later before I had even healed from the port placement surgery. You could bring this up as an option so you can start chemo sooner.
Diagnosed 4/8/16, age 29
Colectomy 4/20/16
Stage III, T4bN1 Tumor 7x6.5x2. Muscinous Adenocarcinoma with SRC features
2/16 lymph nodes
Stage IV, Peri mets 5/2019
CEA 4/14/16 - 16.8
CEA 6/2/16 - 1.9
CEA 6/17/16 - 0.87, 7/16 - 1.33, 12/16 - 1.14, 4/17 - 0.6, 7/17 - 0.5, 10/17 - 0.9, 3/19 -5.8, 4/19 -10
FOLFOX began 6/24/16 - 11/25/16, FOLFIRI - 5/10/19
10 round FOLFOX, 2 round 5-FU & Leucovorin, 1 round FOLFIRI
MRI & CT 8/16 - NED, CT 12/16 - 10/17 - NED