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← Return to Cancer Free After Radiation and Chemo DART 2.0 Trial
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Cancer Free After Radiation and Chemo DART 2.0 Trial
Head & Neck Cancer | Last Active: Mar 31 2:59pm | Replies (22)Comment receiving replies
My situation is similar to yours. I too had squamous cancer at the base of my tongue, that had spread to a lymph node on my neck. It had spread across the midline of my tongue, and I wasn’t a candidate for surgery either. I wasn’t in a clinical trial, but I wasn’t physically able to complete the 7 weeks of radiation 5x a week and chemo once a week for 7 weeks. Mine was Cisplatin also. I ended up completing 5 1/2 weeks of radiation and 5 weeks of chemotherapy. I had a PET scan in July and showed I’m cancer free. The blood test you spoke of went from 1,700, to 60 (2 weeks before I quit treatment) to negative in July.
I found your posts searching for hope. When my chemotherapy oncologist went over my results, and I thought I should be celebrating, she reminded me three times, “you didn’t complete treatment!” She didn’t use the word remission either. I messaged her office a couple days later, and her nurse responded, “complete remission, caveat she didn’t finish treatment.”
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@connie62 hi CONNIE. I’m sorry it took so long to get back on the site and see your post. After my 28 radiation treatments and five chemo treatments I had the NAVEX test on the day of the 28th radiation treatment. The number was I believe 12 from my last NAV dx test and every indication was that I would have a zero on January 10, 2025 when I did my 28th radiation treatment. So I stopped treatment. I too see constant references to the fact that I stopped the trial early. I contested that characterization since I did the 28 radiation and five chemo treatments provided for in the protocol. However, mayo maintains that since the NAV Dx result for the test immediately prior to completion of my 28th radiation treatment still was 12, then my decision to stop at 28 radiation treatments constituted ending the trial early. I still dispute that but thank God it appears to be neither here nor there since every NAV Dx test since January 10, 2025 has remained at zero. I hope you’re doing well and that you are side effect free at this time. My best to you always. Brian.