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kk1 · 08-24-2008, 07:11 AM

Hi just want to make 2 comments:

To mellissa: Please do not let your Dr. think it is a replacement for scans. I can speak from experience, twice now I have had a recurrence to my liver with a CTC of 5. So if the met is small or a regrowth of a dormant met you may not have cancer cells circulating yet. What the test in my case did tell us was that we could treat the met in a more localized fashion and not jump right into a systemic difficult treatment. There is an excellent tutorial here on how to use the test results. http://www.clinicaloptions.com/Oncol...r%20Cells.aspx

To Joan: my hospital does not do the test either because only Quest labs is licensed by Seimens to do the test. The hospital just draws th blood in a special tube that they order thru Seimens and then ship it to Quest for analysis. Many of the Drs. at my center must be using this test as the nurses always have the tubes on hand in CTU.

08-24-2008, 07:11 AM	#10
kk1 Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 182	Hi just want to make 2 comments: To mellissa: Please do not let your Dr. think it is a replacement for scans. I can speak from experience, twice now I have had a recurrence to my liver with a CTC of 5. So if the met is small or a regrowth of a dormant met you may not have cancer cells circulating yet. What the test in my case did tell us was that we could treat the met in a more localized fashion and not jump right into a systemic difficult treatment. There is an excellent tutorial here on how to use the test results. http://www.clinicaloptions.com/Oncol...r%20Cells.aspx To Joan: my hospital does not do the test either because only Quest labs is licensed by Seimens to do the test. The hospital just draws th blood in a special tube that they order thru Seimens and then ship it to Quest for analysis. Many of the Drs. at my center must be using this test as the nurses always have the tubes on hand in CTU. __________________ KK1 April 2004 de novo metastatic left breast 1.5cm her2++,er+/pr+ with 2 small liver mets weekly taxotere,herceptin, xeloda Sept 2004 NED-3 herceptin, zoladex,aromasin Dec 2006 recurrence in liver Feb. 2007 liver resection left lobe removed-herceptin, zoladex, switch to Arimidex NED 16 months added zometa May 2008 new lesion in liver 15mm Tykerb/Xeloda/Herceptin July 2008 stable...yeah! Sept 2008 NED again !!! Jan 2009 fell off the wagon again spot back in the liver and fell out of menopause. Feb 2009 RFA and 2nd liver resection to remove spot ---back on the NED wagon again continue Tykerb, Herceptin. March 2009- oophrectomy added Femara and bi-annual Zometa May 2009- scans clear but suspect lung nodule June 2009- Lung VAT wedge resection to remove nodule---fungus ball not cancer!! phew Aug 2009- NED Nov 2009-scans again clear YAHOO! March 2010- scans clear continue Tykerb, Herceptin, Femara, Zometa Q6mo Nov 2009-Nov 2019 scans clear done every 6 months Feb 2020 - Fell out of the NED wagon hard! single liver lesions and large infect cyst. 3 weeks in ICU. March 2021- 5 cycles perjeta, herceptin, navelbine. lesion stable. June 2021 - 3rd liver resection to remove single liver lesion. Continued perjeta, herceptin. Nov. 2021- PET scan show 5 hot nodes near liver. 9 cycles Kadcyla June 2021- PET scan shows progression. nodes size unchanged but even more SUV uptake. July 2021- start ENHERTU