Stereotactic Radiosurgery

My sister has colon cancer w/mets to the liver. The dr. is talking about doing stereotactic radiosurgery on the spots on the liver. Has anyone heard of this? Nancy

Although I've not heard of it, I too am a Stage IV colon cancer survivor.  I was diagnosed in July of '04. 

Although I didn't use the above, I did use HAI Therapy.

I had colon cancer with mets to the liver.

I used Irinotecan and used an HAI pump that put FUDR directly into my liver. It caused no side effects. The HAI caused no side effects

Everyone is different, and works for them is different. 

Info from my medtronic pump can be found at
http://www.medtronic.com/neuro/hai/physician/summary.html

Info from Sloan Kettering on the HAI pump can be found at

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/63980.cfm

I was initially told that I could die at any moment, but had 18 months to live with surgery.  I am still here, with no signs of cancer.

You may want to try the colon site, since the diagnosis is colon cancer with mets to the liver. 

Good luck.

 

On 12/20/2006 Nastro wrote:

My sister has colon cancer w/mets to the liver. The dr. is talking about doing stereotactic radiosurgery on the spots on the liver. Has anyone heard of this? Nancy

 

hi i have heard of it have you heard about the theresphere treatment  dr, gellar at pitts. medical center does this with great results my brother and i are going to attempt it after the holidays he has liver cancer

My father had to deal with colon cancer with liver mets...the doc that helped him the most and that we thoroughly trust is dr. david geller at upmc in pittsburgh. he's the best by far and will be instrumental in your success no matter what the issues....best of luck!~

Your sister has a GREAT Dr.!  Most Dr's shy away from targeted radiation therapy even though is has had REMARKABLE success rates.  My own dr when I brought it up to him back 22 months ago discouraged me, and now I no longer qualify as my tumors are too large and too numerous.

Essentially this is a VERY new (only about 7 places in the US can do it right now) version of radiation therapy where VERY targeted doses of radiation kill just the cells.  The only other similar treatment is RFA (radio frequency ablation) in which a wire is inserted INTO the cells and they are similarly cooked from within with radio waves - both are very effective and when they work can actually lead to a long-term survival rate almost unheard of in liver cancers.

On 12/20/2006 Nastro wrote:

My sister has colon cancer w/mets to the liver. The dr. is talking about doing stereotactic radiosurgery on the spots on the liver. Has anyone heard of this? Nancy

 

 

On 1/10/2007 Johnb wrote:

Your sister has a GREAT Dr.!  Most Dr's shy away from targeted radiation therapy even though is has had REMARKABLE success rates.  My own dr when I brought it up to him back 22 months ago discouraged me, and now I no longer qualify as my tumors are too large and too numerous.

Essentially this is a VERY new (only about 7 places in the US can do it right now) version of radiation therapy where VERY targeted doses of radiation kill just the cells.  The only other similar treatment is RFA (radio frequency ablation) in which a wire is inserted INTO the cells and they are similarly cooked from within with radio waves - both are very effective and when they work can actually lead to a long-term survival rate almost unheard of in liver cancers.

On 12/20/2006 Nastro wrote:

My sister has colon cancer w/mets to the liver. The dr. is talking about doing stereotactic radiosurgery on the spots on the liver. Has anyone heard of this? Nancy

 

 

Thanks for ;your reply.  It must be new because  I have not heard of anyone on this mess. board who has had it. Her regular oncologist suggested not doing it because she has a tumor in the psoas muscle that he is just now addressing and told her it was inoperable and so there would be no point to addressing the tumors in the liver. Up until now, the tumor in the muscle had be questionable as to wether it was even cancer. Sounds to me like he quit trying. The dr. who would be doing the stereotactic is at UTSouthwestern in Dallas- Dr. Timmerman. He seems to have great credinials (Johns Hopkins). They want her off chemo a month and then do PET scan to see what he thinks of the muscle in tumor and  to see if they can do the sx in the liver. Hopefully, they can. He at least offers some hope.