Hip Pains

[Olivia]

Hello, 

My dad has ES-SCLC, who has been doing awesome by the way, has been experiencing some pain in his hips. When he saw his PA, they did some physical tests and they weren’t concerned. We’ve figured that it’s probably from a lot more sitting around than normal. But his doctor called him today and asked him to come in tomorrow for x rays. Is that weird? Do you think I should worry? He’s also doing tecentriq immunotherapy every 21 days so I was really just hoping this pain might have been a side effect. He has his scans on Friday and on Monday we go in to talk about his results. I was already a nervous wreck about that but this random call for X-rays has made me feel all sorts of extra nervous. 

[Tom Galli]

Olivia,

I would think if the doctors thought your dad's hip might be a metastatic site, they'd order a CT rather than an x-ray. So I'm thinking they might be concerned about something other than cancer.  I could be wrong however.

Is your dad doing combination chemotherapy with immunotherapy? If so, this is a new small cell treatment and many of us are waiting to hear about immunotherapy's effectiveness against SCLC.  So please keep us posted on his treatment.

Stay the course.

Tom

[Olivia]

Hi Tom,

 

My dad started his treatment right away with chemo...he did four rounds of that. Then did 2.5 weeks of radiation. Currently he is on immunotherapy (Tecentriq every 21 days). So to answer your question, the chemo and immunotherapy were not taken together. I hope this makes sense! 

 

[LexieCat]

I had x-rays for hip pain a year or so ago (was not undergoing any treatment at the time) and they found early arthritis, which is now easily managed with a daily anti-inflammatory (meloxicam). As Tom said, if they were worried about cancer, he''d most likely be getting a CT or PET CT or something.