Dear Dan,
You know…my heart skipped when i saw your message, because, yes, you’d just told me you were doing so well. So, what happened was that my eyes totally missed the part where you wrote docetaxel. All I saw was the letters and name of something I have never heard of -and I thought I’d heard everything – and then I was thinking, “isn’t it unethical to ramdomize a recur to a placebo?” Thanks for clearing up the confusion. Maybe I need stronger reading glasses, too.
Yes, docetaxel is pretty common second line, but mostly in combos.
There are more and more studies looking into predictive biomarkers that hopefully can point to more useful drugs and avoid those that aren’t useful. A piece of fresh tumor tissue is needed so it may not be possible for you even if you felt like running after that.
http://blcwebcafe.org/content/view/152/163/lang,english/
Know thine options, a cancer survivor’s #1 mantra.
Dana Farber is great. But before you commit, please read Steve Dunn’s info about clinical trials? His http:www.cancerguide.org site has the best info on the subject. A trial saved his life, cured him of stage IV kidney cancer. His info is very well balanced from the patient’s point of view.
I’m sensitive on the subject of clinical trials and chemosensitivity assays, it’s personal. I had an assay done when I got dxed with breast ca in ’99.
I know needle biopsies are all the rage but isn’t a PET less invasive? for the patient and also covered in this setting? I suppose it depends on insurance, and their willingness to do a more expensive test when a cheaper one would do. I am not a medical professional, but if someone is gonna poke my tumor they may as well take it out if possible!
There is some interesting info about surgical removal of lymph node mets, and its contribution to disease free, long term survival. I have an article I will forward, “Impact of multimodal treatments on survival on patients with metastatic urothelial cancer”, 3/’07, , where patients who qualified for surgical removal of limited cancerous lymph nodes benefited much more than those who did not have the mets removed, survival was highly increased.
There are other references to similar studies on webcafe’s metastatic page.
If you qualify it could be an important avenue to consider, but is not standard. Perhaps this is in trial somewhere, as well….if you had an ‘en bloc’ removal of this suspicious lymph node you could use conceivably use a piece of it for a sensitivity assay. I hope I haven’t overloaded you.
Keep us posted.
Wendy