Hi. What is the typical course of treatment for lung mets. Found 3 small ones during recent checkup. Have follow up with doctors next week.
My spouse had surgery last February to remove large tumor, followed by chemo in June.
Trying to get our heads around what is coming to prepare for doctor discussion
Also possibility of local recurrence and have MRI Friday to determine
Thanks for any insights. Much appreciated
Treatments for lung mets depends a lot on the patient's situation as well as on the center where the patient is treated. Surgery should be the first option to explore. As far as I can tell, it is the best option for a complete remission. Chemo and/or radiation may have to be given before surgery to make it more successful. If surgery is not an option, you may want to look into cryoablation:
http://forum.synovialsarcomasurvivors.org/profiles/blogs/cryoablation-as-an-alternative
or laser surgery:
http://forum.synovialsarcomasurvivors.org/profiles/blogs/laser-assisted-surgery-for
If this is still not possible, then it's worth inquiring about the vaccine trial at NIH:
If none of these are options for your spouse, then he may want to try votrient, high dose ifosfamide, yondelis or a trial drug. Keep us posted and good luck!
Hi George,
in the UK they try to remove them surgically. Sometimes this requires chemo to shrink them first but then they try and remove them.
Hope this helps
Louise
I currently have lung mets and my dr said that right now they aren't operable because they are deep and they would have to take a lot of lung tissue to get them. Since they are small (1 cm), they aren't causing me any symptoms yet, but surgery would affect my breathing.
Instead, they put me on a phase one trial of a vaccine. They said I have "lots of time for plan B,C, D, etc. if this doesn't work." I'm being treated at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance where they general are very aggressive in their treatment of sarcoma.
Let us know what your husband's docs recommend.
-Sheryl
Thank you all for the quick feedback. I will let you know what the docs recommend. Knowing there are options is comforting. We both have a tendency to freeze when docs discuss these things initially so wanted to prepare in advance so we could ask questions in meaningful way. All feedback much appreciated!
My son has synovial sarcoma in the plura of his right lung. He underwent chemo, ifosamide & doxorubicin which ended in August. The cancer was alittle below 2cm @ his last scan in October.
He had a scan yesterday & the cancer has grown significantly. 7 x5cm. Almost as large as when he started chemo. Has anyone heard of this growing so soon after completed chemo?
He is starting bk on isofosimide as early as next wk.
his doctor has mentioned a study that is going to b starting in Pittsburgh for this type of cancer but the doctor does not have a date yet, so Patrick cannot wait for this study. Someone mentioned a study. Is it the same drug they are currently using for Melanoma cancer?
Wld like to know if this is available for my son. His doctor feels it cld b a cure.
Without treatment, synovial sarcoma can indeed grow significantly. It depends on the patient. Your son's tumor appears quite aggressive :-(
Do you know if the following study is the one mentioned by his doctor?
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02301039
Sheila said:
My son has synovial sarcoma in the plura of his right lung. He underwent chemo, ifosamide & doxorubicin which ended in August. The cancer was alittle below 2cm @ his last scan in October.
He had a scan yesterday & the cancer has grown significantly. 7 x5cm. Almost as large as when he started chemo. Has anyone heard of this growing so soon after completed chemo?
He is starting bk on isofosimide as early as next wk.
his doctor has mentioned a study that is going to b starting in Pittsburgh for this type of cancer but the doctor does not have a date yet, so Patrick cannot wait for this study. Someone mentioned a study. Is it the same drug they are currently using for Melanoma cancer?
Wld like to know if this is available for my son. His doctor feels it cld b a cure.
Hi. A surprising update. The lung nodules are quite small and the are not ready to declare them mets yet. We go to see a thoracic surgeon next week to see is they are operable at some point.
Now the surprise. Despite having his arm amputated, the tumor has recurred locally under his shoulder. The recommendation is radiation foe 3 weeks to shrink tumor and then another surgery
I am trying hard to fight the feeling that we are back to where we were this time last year and am more than a little afraid this time. I guess this news knocked the wind out of our sails so to speak. Over the summer we almost started radiation but the main surgeon talked us out of it in favor of chemo. This cancer takes so many often unpredictable paths
Has anyone had success with fighting local recurrence following amputation? Or just fighting local recurrence? Any lessons learned?
Thank you. I read with interest the many success stories with votrient. To all of you, keep up the good fight. Has anyone taken votrient while also doing radiation?
George, this is actually lucky that the lung nodules are still too small to be declared mets. This gives time to take care of the shoulder. Sometimes surgeons don't want to operate if there are mets and a primary at the same time. Hopefully they can get everything out this time!
Regarding votrient and radiation, there is actually a clinical trial open to study the combination:
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02180867
It would be interesting to hear from people on the trial...
Thank you for turning this into a positive. You are so good at that. Thank you also for info on clinical trial