Using Sutent when no Cancer is present

I recently had a reocurance of Renal Cell in my lung. I had the .8cm nodule removed and I have no more cancer. I have been now to 2 doctors and one says go to Sutent and the other says wait until it comes back. My thought is try the Sutent, as a percaution, and if side effects are unbareable, quit and see what happens.

Is anyone else in my position?

THanks,

Mike

On 5/14/2009 mikev wrote:

I recently had a reocurance of Renal Cell in my lung. I had the .8cm nodule removed and I have no more cancer. I have been now to 2 doctors and one says go to Sutent and the other says wait until it comes back. My thought is try the Sutent, as a percaution, and if side effects are unbareable, quit and see what happens.

 

Is anyone else in my position?

THanks,

Mike

Hi mike my name is joan i have been on sutent over 4 years there are several side effects. My cancer  was in the intestines.  Getting back to sutent give it a try and  you will find it is not unbareable.  Wirite to me again if you need more info.  Take care

I believe the current situation for patients like you that are NVED (no visible evidence of disease) is that no one knows whether Sutent and the new drugs can prevent recurrance.

One argument is that they can't, because Sutent works by preventing tumours grow their own blood supply, and they won't do that until they get to a certain size, so you might as well wait until they do get to that size before going on to Sutent (and anyway, they might not be there at all, or just 'invisible'  as micro-mets in your system)(and can recurr at any time, even years and years later).

I believe there are trials running to see whether Sutent can 'actively prevent' recurrance, rather than just deal with the tumours when it does.

If you want to find out more, try joining kidney-on, a very large and knowledgable mailing list (even larger and more knowledgeable than here!), on http://cancerguide.org/kofaq/

All the best, and it's great you are NVED right now! Julie.

Julie,

Thanks for the reply. I agree, but I was offered this trial when I got RCC 2 years ago, and recently the spot on my lung from the original became cancer. My thought was to try Sutent, knowing the side effects and if tolerable, do it. If not, stop it and PRAY for no more cancer. My age (37) is not offering much. Most people I talk with are much older then me. The side effects I hear about are people with the cancer. My doctor (one of them) told me that all his patients are in there late 50 thru 70's living with tumors. I had a second opinion at Froedert in Milwaukee and they told me not to do Sutent. It is a tough call. I worry that I should at least try. I have young kids to think about.

I was looking to see if anyone is doing the trial without the cancer (and I thank the lord every day as I just got a CT last week again) this is not here.

Also, thanks for the link. I signed up. If anyone hears of anything, let me know. I pray from everyone on this site. That is the best we all can do now.

Also Julie, any foods or drinks that help with taking this let me know. Again thank you for the reply.

Kind regards,

Mike