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List of cancer worries yields good news
Posted Aug 21st 2007 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Cancer Survivors
Yesterday, I saw my oncologist for one of my every-three-month follow-up visits. As always, I went armed with my list of questions -- which is really my list of worries -- and one by one, I rattled them off. On a little sticky note, I had written:
- Lymph node
- Digital mammogram
- Next MRI
- Heart
- Colonoscopy
And this is what my doctor had to say about my concerns of the day:
- The occasionally-swollen lymph node on the right side of my neck is nothing to worry about. It wasn't even palpable today. When it is, it's normal. He promises.
- It's time for my next digital mammogram and ultrasound too. I will be contacted soon with my appointment.
- After consulting with another oncologist, it was determined I will continue receiving breast MRI scans. Not always are they recommended for women who have already had breast cancer. But for me, with my "enhanced" and very dense breast tissue, they are in order.
- If I feel no symptoms, my heart is fine -- despite the fact that in total, I have received the heart-compromising chemotherapy drug Adriamycin, the heart-toxic drug Herceptin, and left-side breast radiation. My doctor and his team tend to screen for symptoms. This means they will follow up on any suspicious symptoms I report. They don't needlessly screen for problems that may never present themselves -- which brings me to the colonoscopy.
- Some breast cancer patients I know receive colonoscopy screening. I wondered if I should too. Nope, said my doctor, who told me if I had tested positive for a BRCA gene mutation (I didn't) or had a strong family history of colon cancer, I would be a candidate for this screening but otherwise, I don't need this test until I am 50, or I have symptoms that warrant it.
Tags: Adriamycin, cancer, colonoscopy, digital, Heart, herceptin, list, lymph, mammogram, MRI, node, oncologist, questions, radiation, ultrasound, worries
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1. Treatments can hurt heart muscle by reducing the hearts ability to pump. There are problems that traditional heart imaging tests, like nuclear scans (Pet Scan or PET/CT Scan) or ultrasound, often miss until the damage is serious. Wake Forest University Medical Center is testing MRI as a better way to detect heart trouble in cancer patients, because there hasn't been a method to precisely monitor the heart function or blood flowing through blood vessel.
In patients who are showing heart trouble, the hope is that doctors can tweak therapy and avoid serious damage to the heart. It is hoped to get a two-fold win, detection of cancer and treatment and a nice working heart and cardiovascular system. A high-tech heart check may one day help to wipe out a potentially deadly side effect of cancer treatments. The MRI heart check is still under study, early results show the technology is more effective at detecting early heart muscle damage than the traditional methods.
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School have found that breast cancer patients 63 years of age or younger may experience more chemotherapy-related serious adverse effects than reported in clinical trials.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060816012410.htm
Posted at 11:36AM on Aug 21st 2007 by Gregory D. Pawelski