Unknown Primary Cite Cancer

On 2/4/2008 TexDaughter wrote:

My dad is diagnosed with this antone else?

My Mom was just diagnosed with andocarcinoma of unknown primary and given 6-9 months.  2 out of 3 Dr don't want her to have chemo due to her age as she is 80, however, an extremely fit and healthy 80.  She isn't interested in doing a phase 1 trial at MD Anderson and wants to find the best quality of life she can get in the time she has left.  1 Dr. recommended biologic agent drugs?  and another recommended nutrional supplements etc.  I need my Mom around and want to make the right decision for her. I don't know if chemo would be terrible for her or not.

Jindi

On 4/24/2008 jindi wrote:

 

On 2/4/2008 TexDaughter wrote:

My dad is diagnosed with this antone else?

jindi-I saw your post on the side bar so I'm not sure where to go back to for future posts, but my husbands initial diagnosis was adenocarsinoma with unknown primary. He is 65.  Initially 2 dr "guessed" it was lymphoma because the cat scan showed swollen lymph glands, however the biopsy showed adenocarsinoma. Because the dr had taken a lot of xrays, tests, etc the pancreas was basically all that was left. So the dr said we had options, but he actually recommended chemo . After further blood tests CA19-9 specifically, pancreas was detrmined.

As far as treatment for your mom-is she in relatively good health-what does she want to do? Nutritional helpis good, but -as my husband always says"Where there is life-there is hope-I'm going to live until I die" If she wants to try chemo, many older people have made it through chemo.

Email me at hiswayc@academicplanet.com to let me know where you are posting at.

Jan

My Mom was just diagnosed with andocarcinoma of unknown primary and given 6-9 months.  2 out of 3 Dr don't want her to have chemo due to her age as she is 80, however, an extremely fit and healthy 80.  She isn't interested in doing a phase 1 trial at MD Anderson and wants to find the best quality of life she can get in the time she has left.  1 Dr. recommended biologic agent drugs?  and another recommended nutrional supplements etc.  I need my Mom around and want to make the right decision for her. I don't know if chemo would be terrible for her or not.

Jindi

I am affiliated with a company that has just introduced a laboratory
test
to identify the tissue of origin for metastatic cancers.  In November
2007, a team of pathologists from three cancer centers presented a
poster at the Association of Molecular Pathologist meeting that showed
the test successfully identified the tissue of origin for 8 out of 10
previously diagnosed as CUP.   (It also reports the results of a large
clinical validation study performed on more than 470 specimens).   A copy of the poster is at:

http://www.pathworkdx.com/news/AMPAbstract5.pdf

Although
I am not an MD, my life-work is in advancing the science of cancer
diagnosis - bringing new genomic technologies into the clinical
laboratory.   I
thought this might be useful new information for this discussion. 

Warm regards,  GGA