Talk Cancer

Question:

On the Ides of March, my husband was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer. He was treated for this despite his continuous complaining of a pain in his upper thigh, lower rump. You’re ahead of me. Last week the first-ever MRI of that area revealed a huge mass…sooo…as sarcomas are more likely to start in the upper thigh than anywhere else, and as they travel to the lung more than anywhere else,.. NOW the doctors say it’s a sarcoma. I won’t belabor that point… The salient question: anybody know of a good sarcoma book/source?? I’ve contacted an "expert" at Stanford…but he’s going away for a month..I’ve searched (I think) every possible net source…haven’t done Medlars yet…ideas?   Thanks so much.

Response:

The salient question: anybody know of a good sarcoma book/source?? I’ve contacted an "expert" at Stanford…but he’s going away for a month..I’ve searched (I think) every possible net source…haven’t done Medlars yet…ideas? Thanks so much.

Another expert is Dr. Benjamin at M.D. Anderson hospital it Houston.  He will tell you that the best chemotherapy for Sarcomas is a 4 day continuous infusion of Doxorubicin, plus or minus Ifosfamide.  Medical science has had trouble finding improvments in the treatment of sarcomas but perhaps there are some research protocals that have some ideas.  I don’t have my protocal book on me, I’m sorry.  Perhaps you can get some information from some others. Good luck! David Young, M.D.

Response:

Hi, My uncle have a stage 4 lung cancer (adenocarcinoma) and I think that his chances of surviving for more than 12 months is less than 20%.  Can anyone out there tell me if this is true and if there are any new form of treatment that may prolong his life? Thanks in advance. KG Loh

Response:

Hi, My uncle have a stage 4 lung cancer (adenocarcinoma) and I think that his chances of surviving for more than 12 months is less than 20%.  Can anyone out there tell me if this is true and if there are any new form of treatment that may prolong his life? Thanks in advance. KG Loh

        There is some treatment that he should consider.  But some lung cancer is very responsive to chemotherapy and some is quite resistant.  One can’t always tell which.  However, some adenocarcinomas can be very bad.  Particularly in the individual has lost a lot of weight, has a very bad appetite and has multiple metastases to bone.  Such patients rarely improve with chemotherapy and the prognosis is often bad.  A lot of patients in that situation continue to lose weight and succumb to the cancer in a matter of a few months.  (Mind you that no physician, including me can ever, ever predict how long a particular person has to live so please don’t quote me in that manner.)         However, for individuals who maintain good strength, appetite and vigor, there is now reasonably good chemotherapy agents that can produce remissions, and sometimes these remission last over a year.  It has become much more difficult to tell just which chemotherapy drugs are the best and which ones to use in combination, given that the FDA has approved several new drugs recently.  I have personally all but abandoned an older anticancer drug known as Cisplatin, because of it’s toxicity.  However, there is now a "protective agent" known as Ethyol that can allow one to use Cisplatin with less side effects.  Other important drugs include TAXOL, TAXOTERE, NAVELBINE, GEMCITIBINE, TOPOTECAN and a few older drugs such as ETOPOSIDE and CARBOPLATIN can be used with some success.  When fortunate, a combination of these drugs can be both tolerable and effectively cause tumor regression, translating into better quality of life and longer duration of life.  Not all of these drugs are used at once.  Usually just two or three. David Young, M.D.

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