Meeting with Oncologist
Having spent nearly a week at the Leonardis Klinik, I had an appointment with Dr Jacob early this morning before I left for the airport.
I'd been told earlier in the week that the bone marrow puncture that was carried out during my last visit had come back clear which contridicted the PET scan results. This is highly confusing and Dr Jacob said it was confusing but she thought that maybe there were pockets of tumours in the bone marrow which was not detected by the bone marrow puncture. She felt that we should go with the bone marrow results because this type of test was very rarely wrong. In fact she thought that it was good news that it had come back clear especially as my first bone marrow puncture in September 2005 had showed slight infiltration by the cancer. She has decided therefore that there will be no further chemo for at least the next 3 months as she doesn't want to compromise the bone marrow. She thinks I've had enough for now. She also made the point that the chemo doesn't seem to be getting rid of the tumours in the bones but it is still positive because it hasn't spread to the soft tissue areas like the liver or lungs. I didn't ask any further questions about this but I wonder if she is saying that it is highly unlikely to get me into remission and the best we can hope for is to contain the disease!
She has suggested that I revisit in 3 months for a bone scan and at that time we would consider Tykerb or Avastin and now a third drug called Thalidomide. She said that Thalidomide may be the next course of action because it is cheap and I should be able to get it back in the UK.
She was also very surprised that the UK are so slow at giving Tykerb as it has had excellent results throughout Europe.
I'd been told earlier in the week that the bone marrow puncture that was carried out during my last visit had come back clear which contridicted the PET scan results. This is highly confusing and Dr Jacob said it was confusing but she thought that maybe there were pockets of tumours in the bone marrow which was not detected by the bone marrow puncture. She felt that we should go with the bone marrow results because this type of test was very rarely wrong. In fact she thought that it was good news that it had come back clear especially as my first bone marrow puncture in September 2005 had showed slight infiltration by the cancer. She has decided therefore that there will be no further chemo for at least the next 3 months as she doesn't want to compromise the bone marrow. She thinks I've had enough for now. She also made the point that the chemo doesn't seem to be getting rid of the tumours in the bones but it is still positive because it hasn't spread to the soft tissue areas like the liver or lungs. I didn't ask any further questions about this but I wonder if she is saying that it is highly unlikely to get me into remission and the best we can hope for is to contain the disease!
She has suggested that I revisit in 3 months for a bone scan and at that time we would consider Tykerb or Avastin and now a third drug called Thalidomide. She said that Thalidomide may be the next course of action because it is cheap and I should be able to get it back in the UK.
She was also very surprised that the UK are so slow at giving Tykerb as it has had excellent results throughout Europe.
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