Yesterday I went to see Doc Restrepo to discuss the SGN-35 and give him my decision. Before arriving at his office I was pretty sure I was going to join but I wanted to hear what he had to say first. Doc and I both believe joining the trial is a good decision for me. The drug’s success rate with relapsed and refractory patients has been excellent and other monoclonal antibodies have been very effective when combined with chemotherapy for frontline Lymphoma treatment.
During the physical Doc noticed minor lymphadenopathy in my left armpit. This was not present during the last physical. The enlarged node is approximately 7.5mm (my estimate).
I have a PET scan scheduled for April 8th. Normally in BC PET scans are not done before frontline treatment but it is a requirement for the clinical trial so I will be getting one. In the US and UK PET pre-treatment PET scans are the standard for staging, but in BC normally just a CT scan is done. PET scans differ from CT’s in that they show molecular activity instead of structure. This is achieved by injecting the subject with a radioactive glucose analog then monitoring its uptake into cells with a gamma camera.
Chemo will begin on April 19th 2011. In case it wasn’t clear in my previous post I will be getting SGN+35 in addition to the original treatment plan of six cycles of ABVD, rather than instead of.
update?
ReplyDelete