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Re: failed reconstruction following prophylactic mastectomy

This topic has really piqued my interest. Just 2 weeks ago I had an infection to my right side. It was my cancerous side. It was my radiated side and I had a very uncomfortable and painful implant in there which I was planning to remove/replace in a few months. Well, I was admitted with a 103 fever and was immediately put on dialudid and IV antibiotics. They could not get my fever down so my implant was removed. Interestingly, this infection occurred 1 year after my double mastectomy. The surgeon tested the area and found no cancer. So thankful for that. Debbie's post really got me thinking about this infection theory.

Re: failed reconstruction following prophylactic mastectomy

To clarify about my post about infection, in case you don't read the book (Commotion in the Blood): Although Coley did seem to have a few successes, mostly he (and others trying various similar approaches) did not meet with success. Plus some people died from the infections he induced. His methods, by today's standards, were quite primitive of course (late 1800s/early 1900s). Still, there was enough of a hint of "something there" to be intriguing. Various people, including Coley, continued to try versions of his approach until mid-century, when radiation and chemotherapy began to find success, and interest in immunotherapy waned, at least for awhile.

So it was PURE speculation for me to wonder if the raging infection I had made any difference to my outcome. I don't remember Coley's exact success rate but it was small. Still, if this interests you, I highly recommend the book -- it's an easy and interesting read. A follow-up to it would be "The Transformed Cell" by Steven Rosenberg, mostly about the efforts in the later 1900s, to "use" the immune system to stop cancer. It's a little more technical but even if you skip the complicated parts, you'll get the gist. Those efforts, too, were primitive -- compared to what's known and what's going on today. Although many ideas of that time seemed to hold great promise, almost none were successful.

So I'm throwing a wet blanket on my post, not wanting to mislead. Like I said, random, rambling speculation only.

Debbie Laxague