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Bladder Cancer Group: Introduce yourself and connect with others
Bladder Cancer | Last Active: 3 days ago | Replies (537)Comment receiving replies
Hello all, I'm new to the group. I'm a 78 year old male in Virginia. My first bladder cancer discovery was in 2017. It was high grade, aggressive, non invasive. I had BCG treatment after the TURBT and was clear for almost a year, when it returned. Same thing, same treatment. Since then, I have had 3 more TURBTs for low grade, non invasive tumors, and I lost my right kidney to cancer in April 2024. I have since been cancer free until now. This past Tuesday I had TURBT for a large, low grade tumor, but this time it had penetrated into the middle lining... but not into the muscle lining. Dr was surprised at it's size because I was clean when he did the last scope 6 months ago. He is now giving me 2 options.
(1) Scope me again in 3 months to see if I'm clear. If so, continue scoping every 3 months rather then 6.
(2) Start treatment of Gem/Doce because BCG doesn't seem to work for me, and scope me for continued observation.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has had similar conditions and treatments, especially the chemo treatment that I seem to now be facing.
Thank you!
pol7
Replies to "Hello all, I'm new to the group. I'm a 78 year old male in Virginia. My..."
@pol7 I was diagnosed with NMIBC in October 2024. I will be 77 this summer. I am in otherwise excellent health. My original physician wanted to take a wait and see approach, going in for a cystoscopy every three months. I wanted BCG. He didn’t prescribe it. After a recurrence three months later, and a TURBT, he still wouldn’t budge. I ha another recurrence and then had six weeks of Gem/ Doce. My next cystoscopy was clean. Three months later, I had another recurrence. Clean the next time around. I changed physicians after the six week treatment regimen. I am glad I did. I tolerate the Gem/Doce reasonably well. But I am tired for a day or so after. The literature suggests that Gem/Doce may be nearly as effective as BCG. If it fails for me, I will go on BCG. Good luck.
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@pol7 your history sounds a bit like my husband’s. Tho his initial tumor was muscle invasive in a small diverticulum off the bladder. He was treated once with gem/doce after surgery to remove the diverticulum and tumor. One lymph node was positive so instead of continuing that he had Cisplatin infusions for 6 months. Then he was a BCG failure once on maintenance BCG. He tried Keytruda but no improvement. He finally elected radical cystectomy with neobladder as he was tired of the pattern of repeated Turbts. He is cancer free now 4 years after that surgery. Not really helpful for you facing gem/doce but likely others will chime in with their experiences.