What's messing with your Groove?

[gogobongopop]

Sorry to hear about the fingers. I got the same experiance but with other regims of cyt;
it’s harder than people think to recover from. I have been sweating recently and it freaks
me out a bit even though I strongly suspect it’s nothing and I recently took tests.

Is there any kind of possibility to try newer form of immunotherapy?


Edit: and I will be 39 in a couple of days.
Just some years ago I never thought I would get this old and have to
worry about smaller things in life again. But I got lucky and also had a ’nice’ cancer.

Sorry to hear you got the big C too. Sucks, but really glad it's a nice one!

As for you question, I don't think so. My understanding is that immunotherapy is only a better option than chemo when it's genetic. Mine isn't. That being said I will ask, so thanks for asking.

Thanks everyone.

[Khendraja'aro]

As for you question, I don't think so. My understanding is that immunotherapy is only a better option than chemo when it's genetic. Mine isn't.

No, immunotherapy is actually independent of the cause of the cancer - it's "merely" allowing your immune system to finally fight the cancer. Because that's the big problem of cancer - cancer cells would normally be hunted down with a vengeance but they aren't.

And it would actually be suited for your case because, like chemo, it's a systemic approach - i.e. it attacks all the cancer cells all over the body and not only at specific sites.

But, as there's still quite a lot of mystery to the inner workings of our immune system, it's very much based on trial and error (and sometimes those errors send the immune system into overdrive so you cannot simply throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks).

[wiggin]

No, immunotherapy is actually independent of the cause of the cancer - it's "merely" allowing your immune system to finally fight the cancer. Because that's the big problem of cancer - cancer cells would normally be hunted down with a vengeance but they aren't.

And it would actually be suited for your case because, like chemo, it's a systemic approach - i.e. it attacks all the cancer cells all over the body and not only at specific sites.

But, as there's still quite a lot of mystery to the inner workings of our immune system, it's very much based on trial and error (and sometimes those errors send the immune system into overdrive so you cannot simply throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks).

There's a good deal of complexity here. Generally immunotherapies are useful against specific genetic subtype of a cancer (typically based on their expression of specific surface proteins or sugars), so it's entirely possible that the type of cancer gogo is discussing does not in fact have a solid immunotherapy developed yet - and it's possible that his class of cancer only has immunotherapies developed for more common hereditary forms of the cancer. So while you're right that the ability of immunotherapy as a concept to work may not be limited by whether it is based on a common heritable mutation or not, it is entirely possible that at the moment those heritable tumor types are the ones for which effective immunotherapies have been developed.

I am not an oncologist, nor do I know anything about gogo's type of neoplasia, so I will refrain from further speculation. I would assume that he is being provided with expert medical care and advice and any attempt by us to provide additional ideas is unlikely to be useful.