1. < Gynecologic Cancers
Profile picture for ffr

Post-treatment follow up for clear cell endometrial cancer

Posted by ffr @ffr, Mar 16, 2025

Just wondering how your oncologists are monitoring you for recurrence of an aggressive cancer . I am two+ years post treatment with surgery, chemo, radiation & brachytherapy. I had metastasis to local & distant lymph nodes during chemo so I’m deemed chemo resistant.
-How often do you see your oncologist?
-Do you get CT scans & if so how often?
Is there concern for radiation overload?
-Is anybody using liquid biopsies? A blood test seems like a great way to monitor for cancer cells but my oncologist is not a fan.
I’m always worried about recurrence, so your experiences might be helpful.

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Gynecologic Cancers Support Group.

Profile picture for Helen, Volunteer Mentor
Mentor
Helen, Volunteer Mentor | @naturegirl5 | 14 hours ago
In reply to @cookercooker "I would imagine that active cancer cells would show up in a liquid biopsy, as it..." + (show)
Profile picture for cookercooker @cookercooker

I would imagine that active cancer cells would show up in a liquid biopsy, as it can detect active minimal residual disease. Note that dormant cells hiding in tissues often go completely undetected blood biopsies. As far as blood tests go, ca markers go up and down, due to the presences of cancer, inflammation, or the shedding of cancer cells (from chemo therapy). In active treatment, CT scans can only detect solid tumors. So, if CT scans show NED, it is still possible that cancer cells are circulating in the blood, but not always. My blood tests have shown CA 125 to fluctuate, but still in the normal range. CA 19-9 and 15-3 top the normal range but not in the 1000s; the doctors doesn't know what's causing this. I don't see any use in pinning my hope on either method of blood draw; as I understand it, my stage 3C serous cell cancer is incurable and hence can only be dealt with systemically. I don't know how cancer is dealt with if found only in the blood. Does anybody have information on this?

Jump to this post

@cookercooker You ask a very good question about how cancer may show up in a "liquid biopsy". From what I've read in pathology journals (my husband is a pathologist, now retired) some of these biopsies are more reliable than others. This is a rather new and huge line of research. I'm going to see what I can find by searching the laboratory and pathology research literature.

REPLY
Profile picture for cookercooker
cookercooker | @cookercooker | 11 hours ago

thanks fo rthat. And, how they treat the cancer detected is, naturally, systemically.

REPLY
Please sign in or register to post a reply.