Bladder Cancer Metastasis in Lung

Karen,
I had upper tract TCC and was treated with cisplatin and gemzar for the first two cycles and two more cycles of carboplatin and gemzar. My side effects were loss of WBC,RBC and nausea...and hair loss. Gemzar is a fairly less toxic drug when compared to the platinum ones. I am not sure about the new drugs that they are planning for your treatment.

-Shoba.

Hi Karen,

Wow, you've been through a lot. Upper tract TCC is supposed to be very rare, yet I keep meeting women in similar circumstances as you. Maybe you should join our discussion group to ask about those chemo combinations, I see nobody on the board is responding. Gemzar is becoming the new standard, most often people are receiving Gemzar and cisplatin as first line chemos, but Taxol and Carboplatin are also being commonly used, I've heard of folks getting good results with both.

I sure hope that BCG has halted the bladder recurrences, what a drag!

All the best,
Wendy

I was diagnosed with TCC, stage III in April of 2005.  The "official" pathologic diagnosis:  High grade papillary transitional cell carcinoma involving renal pelvis & origin or ureter.  Tumor invades into fat.  Surgical margins negative for tumor.  pT3, NX, MX.
I had the affected kidney & ureter surgically removed.  Surgery was followed with a chemo regimen of Taxol & Carboplatin.  I've had several recurrences of small bladder tumors that were removed.  Have also undergone 1 post TUR treatment of Mitomycin and a 6 week course of BCG.  My BCG followup cystectomy is scheduled for later this month.
Three month post-chemo CT scans were clear.  Six month post-chemo CT scans showed spots on both lungs which were diagnosed as:  poorly differentiated carcinoma, consistent with metastatic urothelial carcinoma.  I am scheduled to begin another chemo regimen later this month using Taxotere & Gemzar.
Would be interested in hearing anything anyone knows about these 2 new drugs and their success in treating the metastasis.