Hi everyone. I met w/ a medical onc last week to discuss chemo. Although he seemed to be leaning away from my doing chemo, he wouldn't advise me one way or the other. He said that if I decide to proceed w/ the treatments it would be six cycles of Doxurubicin and Infosamide taking eighteen weeks to complete. He said it's pretty much hell on earth and I would be a professional patient for that time.
My tumor was 8.5 c.m. x 5.5 c.m. x 5.0 c.m. It was staged as 2B. I got the pathology report back not to long ago and it said the margins were questionable.
I suppose it's a no brainer as to whether I should do the Chemo or not.Although this will be a life changing scenario, I have plenty of family and a good support system to help me deal w/ it should I go ahead. I think my trepidation is based on my experience so far of having one surgery to excise the tumor and four consequent surgeries to deal w/ the complications. I've already been house bound for almost 5 months.
Anyway, I start radiation in a week or so and thats going on for six weeks so I have plenty of time to decide what I'm doing. I'm also meeting w/ another onc on the 30th for a second opinion.
Some of my questions are; should I do Chemo, should I wait and see, can i wait six months or a year .
I would to hear your experiences or opinions if you feel like weighing in on any of this.
Clint, I would definitely do chemo in your situation. The size and the margins tell it all. Don’t wait either. The faster you act, the less chance you end up in trouble. It may not prevent the cancer from coming back but there is a good chance it will delay its come back if it does come back. I was diagnosed in 2003 and I have had mets and I am convinced that chemo helped me survive so far…
My 20 year old son was diagnosed with a large, high grade, stage 3 tumor in his lat muscle (axillary region) that measured 5.4 x 9.6 cm last December. I contacted 2 different hospitals & each had it's own regimen on how to treat him. We decided to go with the hospital & doctor that included the chemotherapy & this is why - we were told that being that his tumor was so large, high grade & in the area that it was, they wanted to try to shrink it as much as possible before they surgically removed it, in hopes that this approach would cause less trauma to the area, as well as fight any cells that may have spread to other parts of his body. He underwent 3 rounds (each round was 3 weeks & each round consisted of 4 days in the hospital receiving 2 different types of chemotherapy which were ifosfamide & doxorubicin), after the first 3 rounds were done, he underwent surgery to remove the tumor (which the pathology report stated was 90% or more dead), then started back up with his chemotherapy for another 3 rounds to hopefully fight off any residual cells that may have remained, which was followed up by 7 weeks of radiation. Radiation seemed to be an option, but after discussing it with his radiation oncologist, we found out that synovial sarcoma seems to like to reoccur in the same area & along scar tissue, so he opted to have the radiation - they also told us that it increased his chances of not having a local reoccurence by almost 80%.
My son completed everything this past Thursday & returned to college to start football camp on Friday. I'm not saying that it was an easy regimen, but it seemed to be a very aggressive & thorough one.
I don't know what the differences are in having or not having chemo, but I do know that it seemed to be the better choice for my son.
I wish you all the best in whichever treatment you decide to get & would tell you to please act quickly, so that you will give yourself the best possible chance of it not spreading. I hope that you will be on your road to recovery in no time.
Hi Clint, I was in the same position and decided to go for chemo. It’s horrible but I highly recommend it and I very pleased that I committed to this series of treatment. More on my rational here, plus read blog comment posts below from others: http://getbetterget.blogspot.com/2010/12/chemo-or-not-chemo-that-is-question.html
I was on the same drugs you are being offered. Whist I was in hospital a cancer friend with synovial sarcoma was being treated. He hadn’t had his primary removed and had mets in lungs. They were fighting the SS mets with chemo to see if they could get the in check before operating and were successful. The spots in in lungs diasappered folloing chemo. Also his primary tumour was in a difficult location on his spine and the chemo also reduced the primary tumour and subsequently the operation was easy and also successful.
Since chemo I have had a clear cancer scan and in NED status. Go for it.
I’m convinced that chemo kills synovial sarcoma cancer and don’t get confused with a lot of the other published info. A lot relates to other sarcomas where chemo is less effective. Even if chemo just slows growth that is still a good outcome.
Be warned treatment I’d pretty brutal and you will need your family and support team. Good luck.