Hi Cynthia, thank you for your reply. Being a long term member on lymphoma forum I can share some of their experiences. They post regularly (almost every other day) news about lymphoma and sometimes include other cancers. We discuss different treatment options, results of different clinical trials, newer methods etc. That gives people hope of survival. And yes, the trials are very competitive. But I am not excited about combinations of old chemo agents. As I read in one paper there were no new drugs for 30 years for BC. So people are used to think along the old options. Besides, BC is not as deadly as some other cancers. At least estimated 800,000 people live now with it in the US. I hope the situation with new drugs and new options will change soon for all cancers, even difficult ones. Because there is a big breakthrough in cancer happening now. I do consider BC a difficult one because it has the highest rate of recurrence among all cancers. As to my lymphoma treatment I take a combination of a specific antibody and an alkylating agent. So far all my lympho masses have cleared on my midway scan in October, I will have my next scan after my last treatment cycle in January. Then I am ready to deal with TCC.
I hope you don't want me to stop discussions about new methods, right? I maybe a little ahead because some of the new ones are not offered for BC yet. From those that are offered now my biggest excitement is about PD-L1 antibody.
I mean this one
(MPDL3280A, an anti-PD-L1 antibody made by Roche/Genentech, is undergoing a phase I trial, which showed that it shrank tumors in 13 out of 30 patients who had been previously treated for metastatic bladder cancer, and the responses were rapid and ongoing. The trial is continuing (NCT01375842) and there is a phase II trial in bladder cancer patients which just started (NCT02108652).)
I live in Canada and not all trials are available here. Besides, I cannot qualify for any of them because I have two cancers and they want only one.
