› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Has anyone had Sucessful treatment with Chemo?
- This topic has 18 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 11 years ago by
Chris in Minnesota.
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- December 9, 2013 at 6:13 pm
My wife is currently undergoing chemo with three different chemo drugs and I was wondering if anyone has had any success with them or reduction in tumor size.? She is getting Vinblastine (Velban) , Cisplaatin, and TEmozlomide (temodar). She has already gone through many of the treatments, IL-2 , Yervoy ( developed severe colitis after 1 treatment) Gamma knife and WBR. She was rejected for BMS PD-1 trial due to yervoy side effects and at NIH for TIL implant when more tumors were found in small intestine and a new brain spot. She currently has tumors on both lungs adrenal gland, small intestine, Back and one spot on the brain again. Still fighting and going for radiation on one lung tumor and back this week since the lung tumor is restricting her airway. Just wondering if anyone has had this chemo with any help or success. Any words of wisdom for other treatment would be appericated.
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- December 10, 2013 at 6:45 am
I have done Temodar in combination with Yervoy. I had a great response. I also had colitis after 1 treatment of Yervoy (I had just finished IL-2). That was June 2012. I got on a trial at Moffitt where they are studying PD-1 on patients who had dose limiting toxicities to Yervoy. Contact Dr. Weber for more information if you are interested in pursuing that drug. It did help me, for sure. But I have problem with some tumors in my kidney, and I am trying Yervoy again right now. It has almost been 2 weeks and no colitis! I know it can come anytime (the one dose I had it was 5 days), but I'm pretty surprised by it all. Just curious, did the Yervoy help her?
Best of luck!
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- December 10, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Your information is very interesting. Can you tell me if the PD-1 is BMS or Merek?
please let me know how the Yervoy goes. Have you had any brain mets? As to her she only had one dose and really did not see any effect but hard to verify. One comment about her yervoy experience was that she did the yervoy in the town where we lived at the time and they were new to Yervoy. Her Melanoma oncologist at the U of M thought it okay to do there with his direction, so we decided to do it there with a general oncologist who was goin to work with our U of M oncologist in doing this. First dose my wife developed colitis and while we thought we were in the care of our U of M oncologist it was only after my wife got extremely sick we found out he had never been contacted and the general oncologist was guessing on treating her. It took two treatments of Remmicade to get her colitis under control. Bottom line we moved to be closer to the U of M so my wife was being treated only by a melanoma specialist in a melanoma clinic.
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- December 10, 2013 at 7:15 pm
I beleive it is BMS. I wonder if the remmicade would disqualify her for the trial at Moffit, I'm not sure. Mine was resolved with prednisone (although we waited on the prednisone a little too long because I was seen by an acute care clinic instead of my melanoma oncologist, so I kind of see where you are coming from there). I have had 25 brain mets, they were small and that is when we did the Yervoy and Temodar. The Yervoy I only had one dose or, and the Temodar I took for 5 months. Alll brain mets were resolved with that combo.
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- December 10, 2013 at 7:15 pm
I beleive it is BMS. I wonder if the remmicade would disqualify her for the trial at Moffit, I'm not sure. Mine was resolved with prednisone (although we waited on the prednisone a little too long because I was seen by an acute care clinic instead of my melanoma oncologist, so I kind of see where you are coming from there). I have had 25 brain mets, they were small and that is when we did the Yervoy and Temodar. The Yervoy I only had one dose or, and the Temodar I took for 5 months. Alll brain mets were resolved with that combo.
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- December 10, 2013 at 7:15 pm
I beleive it is BMS. I wonder if the remmicade would disqualify her for the trial at Moffit, I'm not sure. Mine was resolved with prednisone (although we waited on the prednisone a little too long because I was seen by an acute care clinic instead of my melanoma oncologist, so I kind of see where you are coming from there). I have had 25 brain mets, they were small and that is when we did the Yervoy and Temodar. The Yervoy I only had one dose or, and the Temodar I took for 5 months. Alll brain mets were resolved with that combo.
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- December 10, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Your information is very interesting. Can you tell me if the PD-1 is BMS or Merek?
please let me know how the Yervoy goes. Have you had any brain mets? As to her she only had one dose and really did not see any effect but hard to verify. One comment about her yervoy experience was that she did the yervoy in the town where we lived at the time and they were new to Yervoy. Her Melanoma oncologist at the U of M thought it okay to do there with his direction, so we decided to do it there with a general oncologist who was goin to work with our U of M oncologist in doing this. First dose my wife developed colitis and while we thought we were in the care of our U of M oncologist it was only after my wife got extremely sick we found out he had never been contacted and the general oncologist was guessing on treating her. It took two treatments of Remmicade to get her colitis under control. Bottom line we moved to be closer to the U of M so my wife was being treated only by a melanoma specialist in a melanoma clinic.
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- December 10, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Your information is very interesting. Can you tell me if the PD-1 is BMS or Merek?
please let me know how the Yervoy goes. Have you had any brain mets? As to her she only had one dose and really did not see any effect but hard to verify. One comment about her yervoy experience was that she did the yervoy in the town where we lived at the time and they were new to Yervoy. Her Melanoma oncologist at the U of M thought it okay to do there with his direction, so we decided to do it there with a general oncologist who was goin to work with our U of M oncologist in doing this. First dose my wife developed colitis and while we thought we were in the care of our U of M oncologist it was only after my wife got extremely sick we found out he had never been contacted and the general oncologist was guessing on treating her. It took two treatments of Remmicade to get her colitis under control. Bottom line we moved to be closer to the U of M so my wife was being treated only by a melanoma specialist in a melanoma clinic.
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- December 10, 2013 at 6:45 am
I have done Temodar in combination with Yervoy. I had a great response. I also had colitis after 1 treatment of Yervoy (I had just finished IL-2). That was June 2012. I got on a trial at Moffitt where they are studying PD-1 on patients who had dose limiting toxicities to Yervoy. Contact Dr. Weber for more information if you are interested in pursuing that drug. It did help me, for sure. But I have problem with some tumors in my kidney, and I am trying Yervoy again right now. It has almost been 2 weeks and no colitis! I know it can come anytime (the one dose I had it was 5 days), but I'm pretty surprised by it all. Just curious, did the Yervoy help her?
Best of luck!
-
- December 10, 2013 at 6:45 am
I have done Temodar in combination with Yervoy. I had a great response. I also had colitis after 1 treatment of Yervoy (I had just finished IL-2). That was June 2012. I got on a trial at Moffitt where they are studying PD-1 on patients who had dose limiting toxicities to Yervoy. Contact Dr. Weber for more information if you are interested in pursuing that drug. It did help me, for sure. But I have problem with some tumors in my kidney, and I am trying Yervoy again right now. It has almost been 2 weeks and no colitis! I know it can come anytime (the one dose I had it was 5 days), but I'm pretty surprised by it all. Just curious, did the Yervoy help her?
Best of luck!
-
- December 14, 2013 at 2:51 pm
I had chemo with 3 drugs. Avastin, carboplatin, and abraxane. I had a 9 cm tumor in my armpit. It was involving a main vessel/artery so they needed to shrink the tumor in order to remove it. After 3 months of chemo, the tumor shrunk dramatically. When I went in for surgery, the pathology report showed no more live cancer cells (dead tumor). I was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The Avastin and the Abraxane were not covered by insurance as they are not FDA approved for melanoma so you have to look into that. Maybe other insurance companies would cover them. Bottom line is the chemo recipe worked better than what even the doctors were expecting. The surgery was in August of this year (2013). I just had my first 3 month scan and am now NED. Thank God for the doctors at the Mayo Clinic
Good luck
Chris
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- December 14, 2013 at 2:51 pm
I had chemo with 3 drugs. Avastin, carboplatin, and abraxane. I had a 9 cm tumor in my armpit. It was involving a main vessel/artery so they needed to shrink the tumor in order to remove it. After 3 months of chemo, the tumor shrunk dramatically. When I went in for surgery, the pathology report showed no more live cancer cells (dead tumor). I was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The Avastin and the Abraxane were not covered by insurance as they are not FDA approved for melanoma so you have to look into that. Maybe other insurance companies would cover them. Bottom line is the chemo recipe worked better than what even the doctors were expecting. The surgery was in August of this year (2013). I just had my first 3 month scan and am now NED. Thank God for the doctors at the Mayo Clinic
Good luck
Chris
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- December 14, 2013 at 2:51 pm
I had chemo with 3 drugs. Avastin, carboplatin, and abraxane. I had a 9 cm tumor in my armpit. It was involving a main vessel/artery so they needed to shrink the tumor in order to remove it. After 3 months of chemo, the tumor shrunk dramatically. When I went in for surgery, the pathology report showed no more live cancer cells (dead tumor). I was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The Avastin and the Abraxane were not covered by insurance as they are not FDA approved for melanoma so you have to look into that. Maybe other insurance companies would cover them. Bottom line is the chemo recipe worked better than what even the doctors were expecting. The surgery was in August of this year (2013). I just had my first 3 month scan and am now NED. Thank God for the doctors at the Mayo Clinic
Good luck
Chris
-
- December 14, 2013 at 2:51 pm
I had chemo with 3 drugs. Avastin, carboplatin, and abraxane. I had a 9 cm tumor in my armpit. It was involving a main vessel/artery so they needed to shrink the tumor in order to remove it. After 3 months of chemo, the tumor shrunk dramatically. When I went in for surgery, the pathology report showed no more live cancer cells (dead tumor). I was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The Avastin and the Abraxane were not covered by insurance as they are not FDA approved for melanoma so you have to look into that. Maybe other insurance companies would cover them. Bottom line is the chemo recipe worked better than what even the doctors were expecting. The surgery was in August of this year (2013). I just had my first 3 month scan and am now NED. Thank God for the doctors at the Mayo Clinic
Good luck
Chris
-
- December 14, 2013 at 2:51 pm
I had chemo with 3 drugs. Avastin, carboplatin, and abraxane. I had a 9 cm tumor in my armpit. It was involving a main vessel/artery so they needed to shrink the tumor in order to remove it. After 3 months of chemo, the tumor shrunk dramatically. When I went in for surgery, the pathology report showed no more live cancer cells (dead tumor). I was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The Avastin and the Abraxane were not covered by insurance as they are not FDA approved for melanoma so you have to look into that. Maybe other insurance companies would cover them. Bottom line is the chemo recipe worked better than what even the doctors were expecting. The surgery was in August of this year (2013). I just had my first 3 month scan and am now NED. Thank God for the doctors at the Mayo Clinic
Good luck
Chris
-
- December 14, 2013 at 2:51 pm
I had chemo with 3 drugs. Avastin, carboplatin, and abraxane. I had a 9 cm tumor in my armpit. It was involving a main vessel/artery so they needed to shrink the tumor in order to remove it. After 3 months of chemo, the tumor shrunk dramatically. When I went in for surgery, the pathology report showed no more live cancer cells (dead tumor). I was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The Avastin and the Abraxane were not covered by insurance as they are not FDA approved for melanoma so you have to look into that. Maybe other insurance companies would cover them. Bottom line is the chemo recipe worked better than what even the doctors were expecting. The surgery was in August of this year (2013). I just had my first 3 month scan and am now NED. Thank God for the doctors at the Mayo Clinic
Good luck
Chris
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