Have you had TACE or SirSpheres radiation treatment? Please share

Posted by Sue @sue_in_delaware, Oct 4, 2015

Does anyone have experience with receiving TACE or SirSpheres, which are 2 types of radiation to the cancer tumor. I have colon cancer with mets to the liver. I've had 8 chemo treatments since starting chemo on April 22, 2015 and the 7.2 tumor in my liver has only shrunk to 6.2. They want it smaller before trying resection surgery. I'm wondering about the side effects of the TACE or Sir Sphreres treatments, pros and cons, risks and benefits etc. Thanks!

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Hey @sue_in_delaware and @Laydeewinx, How are you doing? What will the holidays be like for you this year?

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Hi Colleen, doing ok, thanks for asking. We have a party every year where all the family gets together with food and drinks etc. It's about 20 people. It starts around 5pm and lasts well past midnight usually. I've been going to bed around 9 or 10 pm these days, so the party will be my first big night out in a long time! I'm looking forward to it. It'll probably take me a few days to recover lol.
Happy Holidays to you and yours!

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Hi everyone, Happy Holidays and trust in God, he will help us.

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@sue_in_delaware

Hi Colleen, doing ok, thanks for asking. We have a party every year where all the family gets together with food and drinks etc. It's about 20 people. It starts around 5pm and lasts well past midnight usually. I've been going to bed around 9 or 10 pm these days, so the party will be my first big night out in a long time! I'm looking forward to it. It'll probably take me a few days to recover lol.
Happy Holidays to you and yours!

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Sounds lovely @sue_in_delaware. I suppose you will learn the fine art of pacing yourself. I wish you all the best for both the festivities and the recovery 🙂

Happy holidays.

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This site confuses me a bit. Where do I ask a question so that any members who can relate, can respond?

I want to find people who are taking Xeloda (or generic Capecitabine) pills. I'd like to compare notes with anyone who's been on it, for how long, does it really act as a long term treatment to keep shrinking existing tumors and prevent new tumors from forming? What side effects people have and how to deal with it, etc.

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Hi Sue,
You did the right thing by posting to the existing thread title Xeloda https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/xeloda/ Unfortunately it has not generated conversation. I was hoping @jseim106 would join in to share her experience with the drug.

Using the search functionality I found this older thread https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/colon-cancer/ where a few people were talking about Xeloda. If you post to it, they contributors will get an email notification and may return to the forum. I've had some success bringing people back to respond to new members this way.

I'll keep searching. I'll also private message you about the site usability. We're making improvements to it and would like your feedback.

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Thanks for responding Colleen. I don't have any private messages though. ?

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I got distracted and didn't send it right away. Writing now...

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Hi ladies,

I apologize for the slow reply. I was not getting alerts to new messages on here, and then it was so close to my scan date that I figured I would update when I had the scan results.

It seems that the TACE did good things for me as many of the liver lesions are now stable and the most concerning one even shrunk a little - so pretty amazing news on that end. Unfortunately the lesions that are outside the liver continued to grow, except for the primary in my duodenum which also shrunk a little. This news was not completely unexpected but still a bummer, so I will be switching treatments from gleevec to stivarga in the next little while.

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@Colleen_Young @smness
Update on my SIRT (Y-90) Sir-Spheres microspheres radiation procedure that was done on Nov. 24, 2015. The report from yesterday's MRI scan (Feb 24, 2016) was read to me over the phone this morning. The good news is that my original 7.7 cm tumor (which was diagnosed on Feb 6, 2015) in the right lobe of my liver which was treated with that radiation procedure, has shrunk down to 4.7 cm. However, the bad news is, there are NEW 1cm and some smaller tumors elsewhere in my liver, Additionally, a "suspicious lung nodule" is showing on the scan.

Now they'll schedule a CT scan of my chest to figure out the lung nodule issue. And they'll decide if there's some additional chemo (besides the Capecitabine pills that I take now) which will help kill off these new tumors. Perhaps the Xeloda is not working the way it's supposed to? Also, they do say shrinkage can continue (on that large tumor that was radiated) for an additional few months. Or I may need another SIRT procedure.

So now I'm in a holding/waiting pattern again until more tests and doctor consultations are scheduled. Please pray for me if you can. Thanks everyone.

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