Laser Assisted Pulmonary Metastasectomy
 

Hi, Everyone -- I am helping a friend who appears to be a candidate for LAPM. (Stage IV, mets appear confined to lung interiors only.)

She's skittish and resistant to treatment of any sort, but will consider LAPM. She can travel for the treatment.

She would like to hear from any BC patients who have had the procedure. And ideally, talk to an oncologist who's prescribed around it (Personally, I would suspect/assume that medication approach wouldn't drastically differ from that for an MBC patient undergoing any similar surgery.)

Would anybody here know of anyone -- especially a patient?

Many, many thanks for reading :-)

Re: Laser Assisted Pulmonary Metastasectomy
 

I know nothing about it, but I'm intrigued, because it seems possible I might be a candidate for that procedure at some point.

I hope your friend gets what she needs, both in terms of information and in terms of treatment.

Re: Laser Assisted Pulmonary Metastasectomy
 

I haven't exactly heard of this procedure. However, you may want to contact Dr. Steven Chmura at University of Chicago about a clinical trial that is using local procedures along with systemic therapy to treat oligometastatic breast cancer, or breast cancer that has limited metastatic spread (search under clinicaltrials.gov):

NCT02364557

For Canadian women, here's a similar clinical trial:

NCT01446744

I've been posting on this site since 2007 about the potential benefits of using local procedures along with systemic therapy to treat oligometastatic breast cancer.

I used both a lung wedge resection (or surgery) in 2007, and in 2008 radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in the lung (or burning the tumor with radiofrequency waves), which is a very minimally invasive procedure. Oftentimes, these procedures can also be used if systemic therapy eliminates most of the tumors, such that only a few stubborn ones remain.

The idea of oligometastatic cancer is not new and was brought up many years ago by Dr. Samuel Hellman who is now professor emeritus at University of Chicago. Every year, AACR has a session on oligometastasis, and at ASCO this year, there was a session on treating advanced prostate cancer with local procedures.

However, there is never such a session at SABCS, as it seems that breast cancer oncologists are still holding out on recommending a combination of system and local therapy. But I was very happy that Dr. Jenny Chang, who is frequently a panelist on SABCS's hot topic sessions for advocates, was on this year's AACR panel. Yay!!! Go, Jenny!!

Joan