jonathon

[debbie412]

If you dont mind listening, i would like to tell you my moms story and see what you think. June of 2002 she was dx with extensive sc mets to adrenal. They only biopsy'd the lung and said they made an EDUCATED ASSUMPTION that adrenal was a mets from the lung. This was at a hospital in nj. We took all her records to Sloan Ketering in NY and they said they would use the same protocol. Her onc is in nj but trained at Sloan Kettering. She did 6 rounds of chemo(Cis-Plat) and then had a PET. It still showed activity in the lung and a little activity on the chest(thoracic area), but nothing on the adrenal. Right away the dr called and said we are going to clear this up with radiation. She had 6 weeks of radiation. The dr said wait 2 weeks and go for a CAT. My mom argued and said she wanted a PET, he said fine but he usually doesnt like to do this because sometimes they find activity in different places and doesnt know what to do with that info. She went for 2nd PET and they saw minimal activity on the lung but mass was the same size Pre-radiation.(4.2cm) and increase activity on the chest, but no mass. He suggested taking 2 months off and then another cat. He said she feels too good right now and to give her another chemo would make her feel weak. Personally, I think she was misdiagnosed from the beginning and i had alot of questions for him. Tell me if I am way off please! If she had extensive with mets to adrenal how can chemo alone kill every cancer cell on the adrenal. I asked him if that was possible, and he said chemo alone can shrink it off of an x-ray, but not a pet. Then how could this show no activity. Then he went on to say well she would have the same tx plan anyway. If she was dx w limited sc they would have done chemo and rad. at the same time, no? There is nothing we can do now, but i am just pissed about educated assumptions, because when you are dealing with lives everything should be done exact. They should automatically do biopsy's on every single mass no matter what statistics show. My mom has been off chemo for a total of 5 months and everything is pretty much stabile. According to statistics this should have spread like wildfire already, right? I am so confused. Thank you for listening. i just love my mom so much and wish i could take this all away. It is almost unbelievable. She feels too good!

[kimblanchard]

I am not a doctor but to the best of my knowledge if you have SCLC that has gone beyond the lung (extensive) you cannot have radiation. That is what I was told because I have it. I would get your mother to another oncologist right away. I don't believe in educated guesses either, this doctor sounds very strange

Bess

[Guest canuckwebgrrl]

I'm no doctor either but you can have radiation with extensive SCLC with node and liver mets. My step-dad is starting 10 chest radiation treatments in a couple of weeks after his last round of chemo.

[Sam'swifeShirley]

Hi guys,

I think that the theory is this. Studies show that in extensive SCLC, radiation to the primary lung tumor does not add any benefit in terms of survival or quality of life to just doing chemotherapy and it does increase complcations and risks. It's not that it can't be done, it's just not done.

Radiation to bone or brain mets for symptom releif is another thing.

[Ann]

In his last weeks, my DH, Dennis did receive radiation to the spine as a pain management tool. Also, there were debates earlier in his diagnosis regarding radiation to the spine as a measure to reduce tumours as there was fear of spinal cord compression if growth continued. As others have stated, we were told that radiation to the lung masses is of no real benefit and can carry heavy complications. Our oncologist was very aggressive and I truly believe he would have tried any measure to prolong my husbands life. On the same token, he also spared any measure that would have caused any uneccessary suffering when he knew the attempt would be futile.