Cancer patients and relapse?
Question:
Answers:
Every cancer type is different and every individual is different. Much depends on the stage of the cancer, the grade of the tumor, response to treatment and whether there was complete surgical resection with good margins. A stage IV cancer means that the disease metastasized and sent hundreds of microscopic or small malignant cells throughout the body. Microscopic cancer cells can lodge anywhere in the body and remain dormant for an undermined amount of time. It is much harder to eliminate every single malignant cell once they have spread in the body. Chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery may bring about a long term remission.
And, in general, the further that a patient gets from his last treatment with no signs of disease reoccuring the better the chances that the cancer is gone for good. But, there is no cure for cancer . . so even though the patient may be in remission for many years a relapse is still possible. Especially, if the type of cancer also had a high grade tumor (the cells look very misshapen and abnormal under a microscope).
So an advanced stage and a high grade tumor (that seeded) would mean a patient may be more likely to relapse. Because no one knows what the future holds in these types of cases, the patient will need to be monitored closely for two years with a CT every three months and gradually will go every six months, and than once a year . . depending on the severity of the disease it is possible to be monitored for ten years or more. But, in general, most patients without any sign of disease stop formal treatments by the 5th year.
My son has an advanced sarcoma, as well as an aggresive high grade type of tumor. He was in remission for 8 months, but we were prepared for a relapse. We knew it would happen based on what we know of his disease from other patients with this type of cancer. Nearly every single patient with his type of tumor relapses eventually ( based on 100 percent surgical resection and intensive treamtment a few have not yet relapsed.) We expected the relapse and put in motion plans for treatment. Unfortunately the disease was too clever for us and we have since had to go to another treatment plan. Basically, relapse means the patient needs to fight once again to get back into remission or into some type of control over the cancer. If another remission is not possible than living with the cancer as a chronic condition may be considered.
Sorry about your friend, hopefully your friend will be able to get back into remission for another 15 years. There is always hope. :-)
A 15 year remission is fantastic! All cancer patients are at risk of relapse. Its very very important to keep seeing a doctor and keep being monitored.
The two types of leukemia typically seen are AML and ALL. AML is the worse of the two; I'm so sorry about your friend's relapse. 15 years in remission was good. I hope your friend responds to treatment and has another long remission.
Statistics regrading of relapse of cancer varies greatly among the different cancer types and subtypes.
In the case of AML, there are many sub-types. Unfortunately, most have a high rate of relapse (50+%) and the time to relapse is usually not long.
Acute leukemias proliferate rapidly. Most leukemias of the myeloid line are usually difficult to treat (APL - AML/M3 is the exception). The prognosis is highly dependent on the genetic mutations involved.
Go to wikipedia and look at the table under prognosis for some statistics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/acute_myelo...
Im sorry about your friend. Each patient is different . If you go to www.nccn.org and look on the treatments for the kind of leukemia he has, you can see what happens next in the way of treatment
I am sorry about your friend..There are different types of remission. Why dont you ask theCancer organisation in your state?They will give you better info.
More Questions & Answers...