Successful Treatment of Diffuse Liver Metastasis

Al and Linda, I found this article, it seemed encouraging...

Multiple Liver Metastases of Breast Cancer: Report of a Case Successfully Treated with Hormone-Cytokine-Chemotherapy

http://jjco.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/29/8/390

[StephN]

Thanks for that article, Lolly.

Al and Linda - I want you to know that my liver mets were throughout my liver and "too numerous to count". Estimate was that about 60% of my liver was tumor when it was caught. This included two quite large tumors.
I don't recall my case being called "diffuse" but it was was moving pretty fast and having its way with my liver.
This is why I had no choice but to enter the clinical trial for "hard to treat" disease, and gut it out hoping for a good response. Which I DID get, after about 7 months of weekly chemos and Herceptin. Well, you know all that, but there was no pussyfooting around in my case as it was so advanced so quickly.
Esther had even more involvement with tumors in her liver than I did and she is doing great right now. She took Xeloda and Navelbine with Herceptin.
And my brother was a little distant with me for a while as well. Turned out he was just afraid and did not know how to deal with my "impending" death. His wife has had 2 brothers die from different cancers, and they are just scared of the very word.
Maybe you need to find a way to "break the ice" with your bro-in-law and let him know a little more about what is going on. My brother has a big company of his own, and after his kids and grands does not even have much time for our parents who live in the same town. But, he is making more of an effort with me now when we do connect, which is more often. (Couldn't get him off the phone tonight!)

You and Linda have the right attitude and WILL see some improvement, I am sure. They just have to follow her with CT scans from now on - be firm!

Interesting Article Lolly,
Here's the part I find interesting:

"O'Reilly et al. analyzed 312 patients and reported that the median survival after the diagnosis of liver metastasis was 3.8 months (4). Concerning the results of arterial injection chemotherapy, Fraschini et al. (11) reported that the response rate was 36% and that the median survival was 11 months."

Well, it's been a year since Linda first jaundiced with >80% involvement so we must be doing something right. We are also achieving an excellent QOA so onwards we march.

Thanks for your support guys (girls),

Al

[Lolly]

Al and Linda; Here's another bit from this article that I found very interesting and shows you're definitely on the right track by demanding close observation and agressive treatment, so YES, you're doing something right! Keep up the good work!

"...Hence prognoses do not currently reflect improvement in response rates for systemic chemotherapy and arterial injection chemotherapy. Generally, it has been reported that survival does not exceed 2 years (10). In recent years, therapeutic strategies after relapse of breast cancer have gradually changed. Since 1982, endocrine chemotherapy has been systematically used. In chemotherapy for recurrent breast cancer, the efficacy of adriamycin (ADM), methotrexate (MTX), 5-fluorouracil (5FU), cyclophosphamide (CPM), vincristine (VCR) and mitomycin C (MMC) has been demonstrated. Antitumor cytokines such as TNF-[alpha] and IFN-[alpha] have also been used in clinical practice...

...Multidisciplinary treatment may be most important for the initial treatment at relapse. Administering intensive therapy with anticancer agents in accordance with leukemia treatment under careful control before breast cancer cells develop drug resistance may be effective. Taking the results into consideration, these combined treatments including cytokines can be a rational therapy for metastatic breast cancer after analyzing the precise mechanism of actions and side effects.

Our patient was a medical professional. Informed consent was sufficiently conducted regarding the state of the disease and treatment after this treatment was started. The patient's aggressive attitude may have favorably affected the treatment course."