› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Another round of gamma knife for brain mets….sigh
- This topic has 16 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 2 months ago by
nickmac56.
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- September 20, 2011 at 12:02 pm
My wife can't buy a break. After finishing up the 15 radiation treatments for her spinal cord mets (using the new tomo therapy radiation treatment), she had a brain MRI last Friday, which was a followup to her gamma knife treatment of the two brain tumors of 6 weeks ago. The good news, one of those tumors is gone, and the other is reduced in volume by 41%. The oncology radiologist made the claim that this means her melanoma is very radiation sensitive and bodes well for the spinal tumors as well as for any new tumors.
My wife can't buy a break. After finishing up the 15 radiation treatments for her spinal cord mets (using the new tomo therapy radiation treatment), she had a brain MRI last Friday, which was a followup to her gamma knife treatment of the two brain tumors of 6 weeks ago. The good news, one of those tumors is gone, and the other is reduced in volume by 41%. The oncology radiologist made the claim that this means her melanoma is very radiation sensitive and bodes well for the spinal tumors as well as for any new tumors. The bad news is she has two new brain tumors – still pretty small (about 1/3" or 9mm in size in all directions). The locations are completely random – there is no clustering occurring.
So a week from this Thursday she will have the gamma kife treatment again. We opted for that over the Cyberknife because it is fewer treatments (one versus five), it's more precise, she's tough and can take the whole cage installation on the head process, it won't affect her hair (cyberknife causes hair loss for her, gamma waves do not), and in the event another tumor pops up in the next ten days, it can be added to the treatment protocol because they do a high resolution MRI the day of the treatment and it's easy to add that to the computer program.
So for her right now, given the lack of availability of any systemic treatment or cure, it is scan and zap. She remains on the steroids and antiseizure meds too. She is still on Temodar, but given the emergence of these new brain tumors I wonder if that continues to make sense.
So far, the zapping seems to be effective. I've read a lot about the radiation resistance of melanoma, and am of course worried that at some point the radiation is no longer effective. Anybody else have experience with radiation initially being effective but then losing its potency?
Nick
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- September 20, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Nick, thanks for the update on your wife's condition. Unfortunately it seems that melanoma has started to overcome the effects of Temodar, so it is time to try something else if possible. Perhaps another type of chemo might do something, but I know that you are running out of options.
With radiation, I have found that a tumour will shrink to a certain size and then will refuse to shrink any more. One never knows if all the melanoma cells have been inactivated within the tumour. However, the bigger worry is metastasis and the way that melanoma cells tend to form new tumours in distant locations.
Take care
Frank from Australia
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- September 20, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Nick, thanks for the update on your wife's condition. Unfortunately it seems that melanoma has started to overcome the effects of Temodar, so it is time to try something else if possible. Perhaps another type of chemo might do something, but I know that you are running out of options.
With radiation, I have found that a tumour will shrink to a certain size and then will refuse to shrink any more. One never knows if all the melanoma cells have been inactivated within the tumour. However, the bigger worry is metastasis and the way that melanoma cells tend to form new tumours in distant locations.
Take care
Frank from Australia
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- September 20, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Thanks Frank, as you might know from my profile and other posts we are already fighting distant metastasis – we just hope her spinal tumors respond as well as her brain tumors so far. I agree on the Temodar – I sent an email off to our doc this morning inquiring about this and he agrees on stopping it and starting abraxane after her gammaknife. I know nothing about abraxane.
Nick
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- September 20, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Thanks Frank, as you might know from my profile and other posts we are already fighting distant metastasis – we just hope her spinal tumors respond as well as her brain tumors so far. I agree on the Temodar – I sent an email off to our doc this morning inquiring about this and he agrees on stopping it and starting abraxane after her gammaknife. I know nothing about abraxane.
Nick
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- September 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Hi Nick, I am sorry to hear the latest on your wife, but hopeful that you both will breeze through this latest treatment. Your last post to me made me cry! It seems we are going through a lot of the same things, you just express them better than I do!
I don't have ant answers for you, just lots of good wishes.
I know my husband really wanted to do cyber or gamma knife, he calls the procedures the "bug zapper"! Unfortunately, his brain mets are popping up all over the place and it seems new ones appear every week! So the Radiation team has recommended WBR, so we are not chasing after the tumors every month. We are a little apprehensive about it.
Today is the third day of BioChemo. He has not had too many side effects, so far, knock on wood! Don't know what today will bring.
Jan
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- September 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Hi Nick, I am sorry to hear the latest on your wife, but hopeful that you both will breeze through this latest treatment. Your last post to me made me cry! It seems we are going through a lot of the same things, you just express them better than I do!
I don't have ant answers for you, just lots of good wishes.
I know my husband really wanted to do cyber or gamma knife, he calls the procedures the "bug zapper"! Unfortunately, his brain mets are popping up all over the place and it seems new ones appear every week! So the Radiation team has recommended WBR, so we are not chasing after the tumors every month. We are a little apprehensive about it.
Today is the third day of BioChemo. He has not had too many side effects, so far, knock on wood! Don't know what today will bring.
Jan
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- September 20, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Hi Nick. I have followed your posts, and keep your family in my prayers. I can give your our experience with abraxane. My husband had 2 tumors removed from his right lung last September. His January scan showed 4 new metastases in his liver, 2 in his chest cavity, and a suspicious spot in his brain. He was started on a regimen of abraxane/avastin/carboplatin. After 2 cycles, the carboplatin was discontinued, due to an allergic reaction. After 3 cycles my husband was NED. Our oncologist opted to do one more cycle past what he deemed to be "complete remission." My husband will now go on a maintenance regimen of avastin alone.
He tolerated the abraxane/avastin combination very well. Some fatigue and loss of taste. He lost his hair, but that may have been from the carboplatin. His hair started growing back during treatment. He was able to ski most of the winter, but did become winded quite easily. There is a video on the internet of Dr. Boasberg discussing how abraxane/avastin works. The study findings came out this June. You didn't mention avastin, so I don't know if this will be helpful to you. However, I can tell you honestly that in my husband's case, abraxane was a fairly easily tolerated treatment.
My best wishes to your beautiful wife!
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- September 20, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Hi Nick. I have followed your posts, and keep your family in my prayers. I can give your our experience with abraxane. My husband had 2 tumors removed from his right lung last September. His January scan showed 4 new metastases in his liver, 2 in his chest cavity, and a suspicious spot in his brain. He was started on a regimen of abraxane/avastin/carboplatin. After 2 cycles, the carboplatin was discontinued, due to an allergic reaction. After 3 cycles my husband was NED. Our oncologist opted to do one more cycle past what he deemed to be "complete remission." My husband will now go on a maintenance regimen of avastin alone.
He tolerated the abraxane/avastin combination very well. Some fatigue and loss of taste. He lost his hair, but that may have been from the carboplatin. His hair started growing back during treatment. He was able to ski most of the winter, but did become winded quite easily. There is a video on the internet of Dr. Boasberg discussing how abraxane/avastin works. The study findings came out this June. You didn't mention avastin, so I don't know if this will be helpful to you. However, I can tell you honestly that in my husband's case, abraxane was a fairly easily tolerated treatment.
My best wishes to your beautiful wife!
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- September 22, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Nick,
Sorry, about the new tumors.You both are trying everything you can. I know radiation has delayed effects.
My husband has had a craniotomy, 3 Gamma knives and one Cyberknife. He too has had seizures due to edema after these treatments. Like your wife he is very sensitive to the treatments. He was on temodar for about 18 months. After a new lung tumor they changed him to carboplatin/taxol treatments every 3 weeks. He is having MRIs every month. Yeah, we are in that club together.
He is also on the steroids. One thing we noticed he had vision problems. His pressure in his eyes are so high, he needs three different kinds of drops to bring it down. It is steroid induced glaucoma.
Praying for you and your wife.
Susan
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- September 22, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Nick,
Sorry, about the new tumors.You both are trying everything you can. I know radiation has delayed effects.
My husband has had a craniotomy, 3 Gamma knives and one Cyberknife. He too has had seizures due to edema after these treatments. Like your wife he is very sensitive to the treatments. He was on temodar for about 18 months. After a new lung tumor they changed him to carboplatin/taxol treatments every 3 weeks. He is having MRIs every month. Yeah, we are in that club together.
He is also on the steroids. One thing we noticed he had vision problems. His pressure in his eyes are so high, he needs three different kinds of drops to bring it down. It is steroid induced glaucoma.
Praying for you and your wife.
Susan
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- September 22, 2011 at 10:18 pm
thank you Susan, that's helpful info. By coincidence I just scheduled her to see her eye doc next week (she got new prescription glases to try to deal with the permanent vision issues due to the craniotomy) and I will ask him to test her eye pressure.
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- September 22, 2011 at 10:18 pm
thank you Susan, that's helpful info. By coincidence I just scheduled her to see her eye doc next week (she got new prescription glases to try to deal with the permanent vision issues due to the craniotomy) and I will ask him to test her eye pressure.
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