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Nguyen · 05-07-2010, 11:01 AM

Thank you Hopeful!

Hi Rich66, the oncologist usually pushed for chemo, I pushed for something milder and saved chemo as last resort. Though at time I got panic. After fulvestrant failed her, I was thinking of Laptinib and Herceptin, or Herceptin-DM1, or estradiol therapy (from Dr. Ellis's latest trial) as the next step. We decided on estradiol due to the "low" tumour burden and perhaps slow growth, the low toxicity and the possibilty of reusing in AI. I was very nervous, especially when the doc did not want to do the two fdg-pet scan to get early indication of if it'd work, I couldn't twist his arm since my wife didn't really want to do the fdg-pet scans either due to fear of additional radiation. I was very nervous for a long time, what if it didn't work, yet made the things grew faster, or worse yet started another site. After finding that estradiol had already been used "successfully" some 30 years ago, and that there're two patients (of another doc) in the clinic on the same treatment now, and agreeing on monthly CA27.29, we went ahead for it. I guess I'm still nervous since when it resumes growing, would it grow faster? Why fulvestrant was a major exclusion factor in the trial?

05-07-2010, 11:01 AM	#4
Nguyen Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 523	Re: Counterintuitive, estradiol as treatment Thank you Hopeful! Hi Rich66, the oncologist usually pushed for chemo, I pushed for something milder and saved chemo as last resort. Though at time I got panic. After fulvestrant failed her, I was thinking of Laptinib and Herceptin, or Herceptin-DM1, or estradiol therapy (from Dr. Ellis's latest trial) as the next step. We decided on estradiol due to the "low" tumour burden and perhaps slow growth, the low toxicity and the possibilty of reusing in AI. I was very nervous, especially when the doc did not want to do the two fdg-pet scan to get early indication of if it'd work, I couldn't twist his arm since my wife didn't really want to do the fdg-pet scans either due to fear of additional radiation. I was very nervous for a long time, what if it didn't work, yet made the things grew faster, or worse yet started another site. After finding that estradiol had already been used "successfully" some 30 years ago, and that there're two patients (of another doc) in the clinic on the same treatment now, and agreeing on monthly CA27.29, we went ahead for it. I guess I'm still nervous since when it resumes growing, would it grow faster? Why fulvestrant was a major exclusion factor in the trial?