Twinmom

I am looking for opinions. My son, who is 18, just finished his 2nd lung surgery in Germany by Dr. Rolle. Dr. Rolle removed a total of 69 tumors - about 20 of them were undetectable on CT scan - Dr. Rolle vaporized them. The original tumor was in my son's hip and the recent MRI showed it was 'better than stable'. So my son has no measurable disease - which means that he is not eligible for treatment. I am working with a physician at the NIH who is going to try to get my son on a vaccine outside of a clinical trial. Does anybody know of vaccines that are FDA approved for sarcomas?

I want to share with all of you a conversation that I had with Dr. Rolle. First, Dr. Rolle has given us is hope. If he did not remove these tumors, my son would not survive. Even his oncologist at Duke was thrilled that we found Dr. Rolle. Dr. Rolle has been doing this surgery for over a decade and has it perfected. He believes that the best chance for survival once the disease has spread to the lungs is surgery. Dr. Rolle's long term survival numbers are impressive. He believes sarcoma patients need surgery and systemic therapy to improve survival.

Dr. Rolle's surgery is not FDA approved in the US and no one has been able to give me a reason as to why that is. His laser surgery is muscle sparing and does not leave his patients ' pulmonary invalids'. He expects my son to be at 90 to 95% lung function in 6 months. I want you to know about my son so that if you should learn that you or your loved one has multiple lung mets that there is another option that you can consider in addition to chemotherapy.

In the midst of this devesating diagnosis, may God give you peace. Twinmon

To answer your first question, there is no vaccine FDA approved for sarcomas yet :-(

Number of tumors removed is remarkable. I also have 5-6 nodule in my lungs which are detectable by CT and considering the option of surgery. Best wishes for your son.

I pray God will bestow strength upon your son to fight through this! Wow, if we could fund and find a Vaccine,what a blessing that’d be! We will cheer him on in his battle!
I just finisished my first round of chemo due to SS and I’m doing great! I’m fully aware that can change rapidly, but my faith lies in God & know He wants only good for us.
Tell your kid to hang in there!

There is a vaccine trial for persons rendered disease free. Here is a discussion on this site about it.

Clinical Trial - Trivalent Ganglioside Vaccine With Immunological Adjuvant or Immunological Adjuvant Alone in Metastatic Sarcoma Patients Who Are Rendered Disease Free

It seems to be offered in a lot of locations too. http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01141491

More about Dr. Rolle's laser surgery:

http://mmcts.oxfordjournals.org/content/2005/0628/mmcts.2004.000570.full

I am planning on doing this soon! Did your son do any chemo? I am on my 2nd cycle of chemo (ifosfimide/mesna) and have sent all my reports to Dr Rolle. Did your insurance cover this at all? How was the whole experience? I am so glad you posted here.