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Mitomycin Infusion
I am writing about my 83 year old mom. She has been treated for superficial bladder cancer since 1997. Originally, she was treated with only BCGs and then in later years with BCGs and interferon. Last fall her urologist tried adriamycin infusion and she “did not respond” according to him. The doctor then called me in late April to say that mom had been graded a “3/3 and that now the cancer is no longer limited to her epithelium but is in her lamina propria”. He recommend a treatment developed by “a doctor in Iowa”. He went on to say that this new treatment was tried on 25 patients and not one had a re-occurence. After many phone calls, I have now been told that doctor may be Dr. O’Donnell. My mom had 4 infusions of mytomycin followed by adriamycin. The mytomycin was held in with a catheter (though on one visit she was sitting in a large pool of liquid) and then she was sent home to expel the adriamycin. That treatment ended this past summer and since then my mom has been in excrutiating pain 24/7. The urologist sent us to a dematologist, that doctor sent us to a GYN. Everyone agrees that the lining of my mom’s vagina was burned away so we have tried Premarin and other topical anesthetics as recommended by the GYN. A month ago, she developed MRSA and was hospitalized for a week on Vancomycin. Since then, the pain is even worse and none of the topical creams or injected creams (now including nystatin) help her pain.
Finally, my question…is anyone here familiar with whether or not this protocol was developed by Dr. O’Donnell? Has anyone here had this treatment or ever heard of these complications?? If it is another doctor who developed this protocol could you please direct me to that doctor. No one here in Massachusetts, after 2 hospitalization and 5 ER visits (including the one today!) seems to have a clue why this fragile woman is in such horrific pain. I am not interested in blame, but only hope to find out why my mom is in so much pain so that we can correct whatever is wrong. Can you help??
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