Y-90 Therapy

Hello to all and thank God for another day.  My husband Michael has metastatic liver cancer.  He was diagnosed this past February.  He underwent 3 rounds of nasty chemo and 30 rad dx to the original site (head/neck scc).  He had an MRI and a PET recently which has shown that the head/neck is clean, and the last PET said that the liver had "significantly worsened."  His oncologist has only offered chemo and/or a clinical study using an antibody.  They won't do RFA because he has more than 4 tumors.  Understandably, he doesn't want to be treated with chemo again - it rampaged his body.

We are currently investigating Y-90 therapy at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York.  We met with the two doctors who spent plenty of time with us and ultimately they ordered blood work for liver function.  Blood work came out good and the next step is to get the insurance company to approve the treatment.  I've been doing lots of research, but am wondering if anyone on this site has been treated with Y-90.

Thanks to all of you . . . I don't know where else I would put this stuff.  I continue to keep all of you in my prayers.

Georgette

I had a Y-90 treatment nearly two years ago to my liver. It was called a Theraphere treatment. It was very successful and I had no reaction to it whatsovever. From a personal standpoint, I think it is the best treatment out there at this time. Good luck and may God be with you.

Points00:

I am sorry to hear that your husband is suffering so.  My dad had the treatment Y90.  In his case it did help keep the cancer from growing BUT it caused his liver to fail.  He passed away 3 months to the day he had the Y90.  Within two weeks of having the treatment he became jaundice and bloated  We where told it was the beginning of liver failure.  My family and I are sorry that we chose to fight our insurance company for him to have the procedure.  The doctor's had us believe it was a miracle procedure.  He also was treated at Mount Sinai in NY...  I understand that my father's reaction may not been the norm, but  IWanted you to be informed.  The doctors at Mount Sinai did not  warn us of the possibility  of his liver function decreasing at such a fast pace after the treatment.   ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS!!!!! My prayers are with you and your husband.  Good Luck

 

On 10/2/2009 CJs grandma wrote:

Hello to all and thank God for another day.  My husband Michael has metastatic liver cancer.  He was diagnosed this past February.  He underwent 3 rounds of nasty chemo and 30 rad dx to the original site (head/neck scc).  He had an MRI and a PET recently which has shown that the head/neck is clean, and the last PET said that the liver had "significantly worsened."  His oncologist has only offered chemo and/or a clinical study using an antibody.  They won't do RFA because he has more than 4 tumors.  Understandably, he doesn't want to be treated with chemo again - it rampaged his body.

We are currently investigating Y-90 therapy at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York.  We met with the two doctors who spent plenty of time with us and ultimately they ordered blood work for liver function.  Blood work came out good and the next step is to get the insurance company to approve the treatment.  I've been doing lots of research, but am wondering if anyone on this site has been treated with Y-90.

Thanks to all of you . . . I don't know where else I would put this stuff.  I continue to keep all of you in my prayers.

Georgette

 

Hi,

My brother was diagnosed in may of 2009 with islet cell cancer with liver metastis and glucagonoma.

After extensive testing and being approved for the y-90 treatment he began the first treatment. They went in to his left lobe of his liver. After another MRI they found that tumors elswhere in his  body had doubled. THey decided to pause on the y-90 to treat other aggressive tumors and now he is on carboplatin adn etopside chemotherapy. Going thru a 7week process once a week treatment.

We are still not convinced of all the treatment he has recieved. Because he has lost so much wieght doctors are skeptakal to be aggressive. So they are giving him old man dosage.

Im still interested in more information. and will continue to reasearch on his behalf.

God bless you and yours. YOUR ALL IN OUR PRAYERS> My heart aches for ALL of us!!

heidi

gEORGETTE

WHERE do you live? we live in Washington and travel to Portland Oregon for my brothers y-90 treatment. I wonder if that is closer for you?

Thanks to all for your responses; we live in New Jersey.  We still have not heard back from Mt. Sinai if he's a candidate, although they did say to give it 30 days.  We had also gone to see a surgeon about RFA and he was supposed to get back to us - two days ago - and we have not heard back from him.  We had an appointment this past Tuesday with his medical oncologist at Sloan Kettering in Basking Ridge and she told him that she doesn't take it personal that he has looked at other options.  When we saw her the last time, she offered maintenance chemo or a clinical trial using an antibody, neither of which we were thrilled with.  She told him that he has 4-6 small tumors in his liver, and that she'd still like to treat him with a maintenance chemo, she wanted to give it some more thought and research as to what kind of chemo she would use.  Also said that possibly down the line she would consider RFA.  We've always trusted her, it's just that we lost a bit of confidence the last time that we saw her, as she was not her usual self, she was flustered.

What has been God awful, is that the other two doctors we saw, i.e., the second opinion oncologist, and the surgeon that we saw the other day, don't dot their i's or cross their t's.  It's appalling - the oncologist is nice enough, but his staff is the pits.  They've misplaced records, lost cds that were brought over to them, and the communication is like "whose on first?"  And before we saw the surgeon the other day, we brought everything over to him, so that he could look at it before we even got there, so that we wouldn't be wasting his time or ours.  When we met with him, we found out that he was unable to open the cds, because his software was not compatible.  He was going to bring the CDs to the hospital on Tuesday to look at them, and as I mentioned, he said he'd be back to us no later than Wednesday.  I know that we're all busy, we all multitask, but this is no laughing matter - we're talking about life and death and that they can be so lackadaisical and unresponsive, aggravates me to no end.  Or if I here another nurse or receptionist call me "honey" I'm going to go off the deep end.

Thanks to all for listening to me vent . . . this is taking it's toll on me.  On a happier note, my boss gave us tickets to see the Bruce Springstein concert at Giants Stadium tonight.

God bless each and every one of you, and I continue to keep you in my prayers.

Georgette

My husband, who has liver cancer, has been accepted for Y-90 treatment with TheraSphere. They did the mapping angiogram two weeks ago and the procedure is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I am so glad to find a message board for this quite-new treatment, and will follow up with his response.  So far I can't seem to shift my mental gears into "this is really happening"; I am still in "we are doing a drill to show how it would be IF this were really happening".