Metastatic liver cancer

Sandra and Glen left a comment on our April Metastatic Liver Cancer post, which we will add below in italics and our feedback in
normal script.

Glen’s Liver Cancer story

Thank you for sharing your story. My mom, aged 71, has been diagnosed as having HHC (Hepatocellular Carcinoma) in April 08. Her MRI indicated multiple Metastasis in her liver (innumerable large and small tumors).

Sounds like father’s diagnosis: lots of words we heard for the first time and when we saw the picture of his liver it became all clear to us: innumerable small tumors scattered in his liver…

Her blood tests indicated elevated Alpha Fetoprotein, and her history of chronic Hepatitis added to the diagnosis of liver tumor.

The liver tumor involves both lobes (which makes it not curable by resection, according to her doctor). She is in pain and takes Hydromorphone.

Father also was in pain due to the expanded liver pushing against all other organs. We tried to keep the pain under control with medicine starting with paracetamol and ending with morphine patches

Doctor said her age and condition doesn’t make her a good liver transplant or liver surgery candidate.

If a liver transplant would have been an option with a certain degree of success, father would have taken that, but he even didn’t have that option because his liver cancer was secondary.

We are looking for all answers and hope to give it our best shot!

If you still have answers Glen, please let us know. For medical answers make sure you get a second opinion and contact hospitals that are specialised in the cancer you describe.

Please update us how it is going.

Sandra’s Liver Cancer story

Today my father was found to have a 12 cm liver mass.

Tomorrow he gets a PET and Wednesday a biopsy.

PET and biopsy as you know being in the field of medicine is standard procedure. Father also had an MRI like Glen’s mom. Hopefully the biopsy gives an answer about what kind of cancer your father has. With our father the biopsy wasn’t any helpful for finding a cure. Yet each case is different and since today is Wednesday, you will get more answers.

Being in the field of medicine I want to see that everything possible is done to save him.
Not knowing all the answers to what he has and how they’ll treat it is exhausting. I can’t lose him yet.

Since you are in the field of medicine and looking at the procedures mentioned above, I am sure you know which questions to ask medically. My sister in law is a specialist herself, and me not being a doctor at all, we did have some clashes… So you will be spared from those useless extra energy consuming fights.

Exhausting is what the future will bring as well, so please update us how it is going.

Please leave a comment to give Glen and Sandra your hugs or to share your knowledge and experience with metastatic liver cancer!

Technorati Tags: alpha fetoprotein, biopsy, blood tests, carcinoma, chronic hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinoma, hydromorphone, liver cancer story, liver mass, liver surgery, liver transplant, liver tumor, lobes, medical answers, metastasis, Metastatic Liver Cancer, morphine, morphine patches, paracetamol, second opinion

Another metastatic liver cancer story: from Idana, posted 3 months ago on Pammy’s Liver cancer story : please give your hugs!

Idana’s metastatic liver cancer story

I’m reading this…..

My dad just got diagnosed with metastasic liver cancer, and he is feeling terrible, so do we.

We will see the oncologist in two days for the first time, doubts and fear is not nice.

He has two base ball sized masses on liver, some smaller ones on lungs and bones.

Two months ago he seemed very good and now he is pale and skinny, he seems very week, and desperate about pain, taking like 60 mg of morphine twice a day…

I was making some research when I found you…. I’m so sorry some of us have to go through this…. it is very painful for us to see a beloved one go through such pain….

Let’s all pray for each other and squeeze the best out of this awful experience, if we need to learn something from this, let’s learn it with love and patience, let’s be strong for them and give them the best time ever!!!

God bless you. soooo much!!!! Here goes my hug!!!!

Metastatic liver cancer answer

There is nothing much we can add to this metastatic liver cancer story.

Apart from the amount of masses in the liver and not having the knowledge where father’s primary cancer was…

It is like Idana says: very painful for the liver cancer patient (when you are on morphine already, we know the pain is humongous). Also very painful for the loved ones seeing their loved one going through such pain… "No pain" was one of our "quality of life" ideas, easier said than done…

Lot’s of quarreling also between us in this difficult period yet we made sure that our quarrels had a positive, constructive outcome. Emotions do run high when there is a person you want to help but there is no cure available…

But Idana summarizes any metastatic liver cancer story when she says: let’s be strong for them and give them the best time ever.

Technorati Tags: beloved one, best time, bones, cancer answer, cancer patient, dad, doubts, fear, god, liver cancer story, love, lungs, Metastatic Liver Cancer, morphine, oncologist, patience

When Kistan2 asked in her Liver Cancer story about alternative liver cancer treatments, we immediately had to think about hepatocellular chemoembolization.

• chemo-embolization are 2 treatments in 1:
• a chemotherapy through the artery feeding the liver cancer +
• a closing of the above artery feeding the liver cancer
  

Immediately, because we went through the same quest when father was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer. We searched the Internet for any cure, we found a few "promising treatments", but :

• they were extremely expensive, a long waiting list and not at all nearby
• they were promising because you tend to hold on believing in miracles
• they were all quite useless in our case because the doctors couldn’t find father’s primary cancer. In other words: even if we replaced the liver with a new one, the primary cancer sooner or later would attack it again (although nobody knows when, so you might say: if I can prolong my life with 5 extra years, why not…. Which is true, but the medical world doesn’t operate like you think…)
• one doctor even told us to stop reading the Internet and spend as much quality time as possible with father…

What is Hepatocellular Chemoembolization?

Chemoembolization is an innovative treatment for cancers of the liver doing 2 things at the same time:

1. block the tumors’ blood supply and at the same time
2. deposit a concentrated form of chemotherapy at the site of the cancer.

A catheter (a thin flexible, spaghetti sized tube) is placed through a tiny hole in the skin and directed through the pathways of the body’s arteries straight into the portion of the liver where the cancer is located.

Chemotherapy and particles which block the blood supply are then infused through this catheter.

Advantages of hepatocellular chemoembolization

Fist and foremost: it is a chemotherapy, so it’s not a guaranteed cure.

It is also used to reduce the size of the tumor to decrease the pain due to the growing liver pushing against the other organs.

The main advantage is that the chemotherapy doesn’t go into the entire bloodstream, so a higher dose can be used without the patient suffering from terrible side-effects if this dose was given with a normal chemo-therapy.

How does that work exactly you say? Well: the liver gets his blood:

• 75% from the so called portal vein
• 25% from the so called hepatic artery

Tumors in the liver typically get most of their blood supply from the hepatic artery. So:

• drugs or embolic material injected into the hepatic artery kill or greatly inhibit the tumor and
• spare most of the healthy liver tissue that is fed via the portal vein.

In father’s metastatic liver cancer case unfortunately: his liver didn’t have 1 big tumor, but looked like a raisin bread filled with little tumors. Trying hepatocellular chemoembolization would have been a daunting task…

Technorati Tags: chemo embolization, chemotherapy, Hepatocellular Chemoembolization, liver cancer story, liver cancer treatments