Firstly I'd like to thank from heart the organisers/moderators/contributers to this exellent site. It gives information, comfort and hope in equal measure.
My dad is 73 and was diagnosed with NSCLC stage IV in April 04. The doc he was initially seeing, who turned out to be a terrible carer, gave dad 6 months, and laid out the 'no treatment, no hope' option as a serious option to consider. I realise I'm not the one to have go through with treatment but dad just didn't want to sit back, and die according to the statistical average. So I got dad to an expert centre, where the docs turned out to be wonderful.
He's had 3 cycles of chemo - carboplatin, vincristine and mitomycin and is now being rested. The scan he had 3 weeks has shown that the mets on his liver have responded signifcantly, not disappeared completely but the doc sounded very pleased with this result. The primary tumour on his left lung is much the same as it was nearly 6 months ago. Dad's breathing is probably better than it was before treatment and his pain is completely controlled by the same dose of oramorph he first started 6 months ago. Has anyone else here heard of similar results i.e. no change to the primary tumour but a reduction in liver mets and if so, what your thoughts are on this news? He has lost a lot of weight which worries me, although this seems to have stablised of late.
Dad has also been on high dose vit C, selenium, beta-carotene, bromelain and a mushroom extract since diagnosis.
Any comments would be very gratefully appreciated. Thank you.
Sean