Is It Possible For Chemo To Completely Shrink Liver Metasteses?

...to the point where there is no evidence of the disease and the patient goes into remission and/or cure?
Is it possible? Has it happened?

Thanks,

Hilary

Hillary,

I had 3 mets to the liver and after 3 months of chemo they had shrunk by 50%. They also no longer showed any metabolic uptake on the PET scan, so they could have been dead tissue. However, to make absoultely sure they were dead, I had Radio Frequancy Ablation (RFA)on them. I have been disease free for 2 years now. I was also on one of the newer drugs (Avastin) which may have helped in the remission. My mets were also pretty small to begin with, the largest was about 2.5 cm. Hope this helps. Mike

Hi Mike, thank you so much for you reply. And congratulation on your recovery, it is so nice to hear about successes as opposed to negativity, which there is sure a lot of out there. Please email me if you like, --- Message edited by CancerCompass staff: for personal protection, phone number removed. Please review CancerCompass Member Guidelines at http://www.cancercompass.com/common/guidelines.html ----I would love to ask you a few more questions.

The first--was surgery performed on you as well or did you just have chemo and avastin and then RFA? Was the RFA enough to remove everything and then consider you in remission? How many mets did you have? So basically what you were saying was that the tumours were there but they were dead, no longer growing so you had them RFA'ed out?

My mom has quite a few mets, including 3 large ones, the largest being 6 cm. The docs have been pessimistic.

is step one in a great outcome.
my father was given very grim odds...we found the
best....dr. ahmed ghany at osu james care east is our
oncologist and dr. david geller is the liver surgeon at
the university of pittsburgh medical center/liver cancer
center. when they did the comprehensive surgery, dr.
wolfgang schraut from upmc did the colon
resection...he said he had to SEARCH for the primary
tumor. dr. geller said you could tell the chemo had
shrunk and made some of the lesions gone altogether!
the chemo did wonders....he was on iv...avastin,
leucovorin, ironotecan and 5FU....he had
resection...he had tons of lesions all over....just stay
positive and keep praying!

There is a documented 4-15% ratio of liver cancer patients who make the five-year (60 month) mark so YES there are remissions and cures out there.  The actual "cure" mark is more like 3% I've been told, but hell 3 out of a 100 is still 3 people who prove it CAN happen!

I have liver cancer and have been fighting a slowly losing battle with it for 26 months.  Avastin helped a little as did the folfury and folfox treatments but I started having reactions to both.  Erbutux was pretty effective (actually saw a 10% or so reduction in tumor mass) but the side-effects were SO painful and terrible that we discontinued after only one treatment. Right now I'm trying the breuss diet, but since I've had a gastric bypass I can't hardly take my pain meds on it and I'm feeling very weak and tired so I may not be able to stay on it strictly enough to have any real benefit.

RFA, Targeted Radiation Therapy and surgery are the best options when they are a good fit for a 'cure' but changing your habits and diet to reduce excess sugars and all meats while limited processed foods is probably the best advice anyone can get to help fight cancer.  Good luck!

 

On 10/23/2006 Mike42 wrote:

Hillary, I had 3 mets to the liver and after 3 months of chemo they had shrunk by 50%. They also no longer showed any metabolic uptake on the PET scan, so they could have been dead tissue. However, to make absoultely sure they were dead, I had Radio Frequancy Ablation (RFA)on them. I have been disease free for 2 years now. I was also on one of the newer drugs (Avastin) which may have helped in the remission. My mets were also pretty small to begin with, the largest was about 2.5 cm. Hope this helps. Mike

Dear Mike,

 My father, age 64 has liver metasteses, the most life threatening to him at the moment.  Do you know how your doctor got the insurance company to approve the use of the new drug, Avastin for you?  My father's doctor is in the process of trying to get approval for this use on him.  I understand that it is extremely expensive, like $10,000 for 3 treatments.