› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Path report back on lumps, new lump and treatment questions
- This topic has 4 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 6 months ago by
jim Breitfeller.
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- July 11, 2011 at 2:53 am
Well unfortunately I was right. One was a pseudocyst with gelatinous material and no melanoma. The second was falling apart as the surgeon took it out and was. Reported as friable with fatty tissue and sheets of melanoma cells..1 week post op I have a lump in the region where the bad lump came out. The oncologist thinks probably a hematoma related to surgery. Too fast for a 4-5 cm tumor to pop up. It also appears bruised on skin surface. Of course I’m worried about that tumor falling apart and having melanoma cells.
I had a long talk w D Samlowski who discussed treatment options. He thinks 1st choice should be biochemotherapy w chemo drug (which I can’t remember name of) along w IL-2 and interferon. I’ve just started to read a bit and it sounds like there are different regimens. His regimen was 4 days in hospital ICU with above drugs followed by 3 injections of low dose interferon the following week. Two weeks off and repeat 3 more times.
Has anyone done this version? I will find out the chemo portion tomorrow when I call his nurse. Did it work? I don’t think the month of high dose interferon did much since this came up so soon ( or maybe it’s because I couldn’t tolerate or afford the other 48 weeks). This will be at a lower dose and I will just deal with it no matter as I would really like to kick this melanoma to the curb and move on.
He is reserving other treatments in case we need them later.
Any thoughts? We didn’t discuss radiation, but I have been thinking maybe the should be done as well? Or before biochemo?
Julie in Las Vegas
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- July 12, 2011 at 8:58 am
Hope that your surgery went well. You asked a very important question regarding treatments
for melanoma – that is "did it work?" Although this is a very simple question, it really
doesn't have a simple answer in most cases. A lot depends on whether one can get the right
treatment at the right time and stage.Biochemotherapy, long-term interferon, and IL-2 protocols are difficult treatments for many
patients. Unfortunately, it is still not possible to predict how well anyone will respond
to them.I would like to repeat the following thoughts from a previous post. Yervoy (ipi) is a new
drug that has been shown to increase overall survival (OS) in some people. GM-CSF is also
a valuable drug that has been shown to change the nature of melanoma to make it more
manageable with surgery. BRAF and similar inhibitors also have potential, but there is
still a lot of work to be done in this area.As you are stage 3 at the moment, I feel that there is no urgent need to start any
treatment (except local radiation therapy if needed) without evaluating all your options
first.Hope this helps.
Frank from Australia
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- July 12, 2011 at 8:58 am
Hope that your surgery went well. You asked a very important question regarding treatments
for melanoma – that is "did it work?" Although this is a very simple question, it really
doesn't have a simple answer in most cases. A lot depends on whether one can get the right
treatment at the right time and stage.Biochemotherapy, long-term interferon, and IL-2 protocols are difficult treatments for many
patients. Unfortunately, it is still not possible to predict how well anyone will respond
to them.I would like to repeat the following thoughts from a previous post. Yervoy (ipi) is a new
drug that has been shown to increase overall survival (OS) in some people. GM-CSF is also
a valuable drug that has been shown to change the nature of melanoma to make it more
manageable with surgery. BRAF and similar inhibitors also have potential, but there is
still a lot of work to be done in this area.As you are stage 3 at the moment, I feel that there is no urgent need to start any
treatment (except local radiation therapy if needed) without evaluating all your options
first.Hope this helps.
Frank from Australia
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- July 12, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Julie,
You may want to do radiation on the largest tumor if possible. Try to get it to shed tumor specific antigens so that the Macrophages can digest and present on their surfaces. Then, if you do Yervoy, it will block the surppresiveness of the the Tregs. Finnally, you do
HD IL-2 to help grow and differeniate the Tcells into CD-8 t-cells, They mature into cytoxic T Lymphocytes and attack the tumors.
http://www.box.net/shared/kjgr6dkztj
http://www.box.net/shared/n0xcdimy5d
Best regards
Jimmy B
http://melanomamissionary.blogspot.com/
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- July 12, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Julie,
You may want to do radiation on the largest tumor if possible. Try to get it to shed tumor specific antigens so that the Macrophages can digest and present on their surfaces. Then, if you do Yervoy, it will block the surppresiveness of the the Tregs. Finnally, you do
HD IL-2 to help grow and differeniate the Tcells into CD-8 t-cells, They mature into cytoxic T Lymphocytes and attack the tumors.
http://www.box.net/shared/kjgr6dkztj
http://www.box.net/shared/n0xcdimy5d
Best regards
Jimmy B
http://melanomamissionary.blogspot.com/
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