A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

Re:A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every pa... by Gordonjcp on Sunday June 05, 2022 @01:40PM (#31633155)

I'm not sure which immunotherapy drug my mother has been receiving, but after being diagnosed with lung cancer nearly two years ago - a tumour roughly the size of a tangerine right in the top corner of one lung, utterly inaccessible by surgery, in absolutely the wrong place to attempt radiotherapy - it's now gone, save for a little bit of scarring and fibrosis where it used to be. The treatment has left her tired and brain-foggy but that's pretty small potatoes to being a chemo zombie, which she absolutely did not want. Although she's in her early 80s she's otherwise in not too bad shape, so that probably helped.

From here on out, it'll be scans every three months or so to make sure it hasn't come back, but her doctor says that if it does come back it'll grow so slowly and weakly that it's just not going to be worth bothering with.

I expect you can imagine the look on Mum's doctor's face when we went in for the most recent scan results - it can't be often an oncologist gets to give someone the best news in the world.

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Re:A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every pa... by rjm226 on Sunday June 05, 2022 @09:27PM (#31636496)

Any idea what cancer she had and what treatment? My mom is currently battling stage 4 metastatic neuroendocrine primary lung cancer atypical carcinoid and being treated with Lutathera, a nuclear injection that targets the somatostatin receptor on the cancer cells and hopefully shrinks, slows, or kills them off. The treatment is 1 injection every 2 months over the course of 8 months. So 4 total injections. She has already been through 4 rounds of chemotherapy and targeted radiation. She has many tumors at this point but the largest sounded similar to your moms, upper left lung, the size of a golf ball. Partially collapsed her left lung. She's being treated at Sloan Kettering in NYC.

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Re:A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every pa... by Gordonjcp on Monday June 06, 2022 @03:00PM (#31644381)

I'll find out. How's your mum doing?

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