Tumour Markers - Tumour down 5%
Hi Ladies
Had my second bout of chemo on Thursday was dying to get some feedback to see how I was doing. Asked if there was anyway I could find out from my blood tests (they seemed quite relucantant to give me any results). First nurse forgot about it collared another nurse later and she said results after first chemo said tumour market went from 40.3 to 38.1 so I figured thats around 5%
I was delighted with this as it means chemo is working and the tumour is getting smaller. My tumour is 7cm so have to have chemo first to reduce the size before they can operate.
Have done some googling on tumor markers and it seems that these results can go up and down quite rapidly.
Anyone else have any idea about tumor markers? Why would they not give me this information as part of progress? Like how you doing glad to report that your tumor is down 5% since last chemo? Find I have to drag info out.
Also found out that I am ER+ and HERP2 (think it was herp2 NEGATIVE) is that possible. Even had sister there to write it down and between the two of us we couldnt get it rihgt its defo ER+ and HERP2 but presume I cant be positive to both. No herceptin. But was confirmed would need radio therapy.
Anyhow thats my news I thought it was great news - would love any feedback on markers from anyone or how you get updates of how things are going - feeling I am missing out on somethings.
Hope all is going well ladies and your journies are going as smoothly as possible is this mad thing called cancer (I dont put a capital c for cancer as dont want to give it a big head!)
Feeling okay after second chemo on the steriods last two later today feel a little better than last time so hoping all will be good
CHeers
Dee
Comments
Hi Dee,
The marker you are referring to is probably CA 15-3 if you want to look it up on the internet. Values below 25 are usually considered normal, though I have also seen 31 considered to be normal in some studies. I have seen blog posts where people had values over 100 (to put your value into perspective).
However, as Dane7 says, this marker is influenced by so many things that it is never considered in isolation. I was told this by a doctor friend when I was worried that my value hadn't gone back to a normal level at the end of my chemo. Six months later it was at 18. I was happy, so was my GP but the oncology team had never particularly been interested by the value of that marker.
I hope things are going well for you
Hugs
Kathleen
I forgot to mention that what they look for are [u:11x8r9gt]huge[/u:11x8r9gt] differences, not just small variations as the values can vary from day to day even for a given patient.
K
Thanks very much for replies girls - I think I got a little over happy and after Googling realise that maybe its not as positive as I thought - well its still positive but I was sort of thinking this was my indication.
Thankfully anyhow it wasnt bigger than before 
Hi Dee,
Definitely it's much better to have this marker value going down rather than up.
Considered in the general context of all the other things they'll be keeping an eye on, it is a step in the right direction. I just wanted let you know what I was told to explain why the oncology team did not tell you this news upfront - not to cast a shadow your improved marker value.
Concerning the other news that you got, being ER+ and HER2 -, you might like to read more about that here:
http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/brea ... 2-positive
or
http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/di ... ad_results
The targetted therapy Dane7 is referring to for ER+ type of tumors is usually Tamoxifen.
HER2+ tumours tend to be more agressive so even though there is a good treatment for it now (Herceptin), globally it's better not to be HER2+
I hope this helps. Glad to hear that round 2 is going better than round 1 of chemo
Hugs
Kathleen
Thanks a million Kathleen will check out those two links.
Hey Dee
Vincent's don't seem to speak at all about tumour markers unless you ask. I was told that they don't find them an accurate tool for how things are going as other factors can change the levels upwards or downwards. They didn't elaborate on what those factors were. They told me that often an increased tumour marker can send them on a wild goose chase of scanning etc which is upsetting for the patient as it is assumed a rise means more cancer somewhere or increased existing tumour and this is not always the case. So they don't routinely use them as an indicator of progress. Of course that is not to say that they don't look at them in the whole picture. No one has ever commented on my tumour markers at any stage until I talked about follow up. Bear in mind my tumour did not show up on Mammogram and was 10 cm post a chemo regime to shrink it! I asked how they would follow me up and would they do tumour markers and was told no they do not do it as it is not a good tool!
Did you have a breast MRI at the time of diagnosis or did your tumor show up on Mamo? After around 5 cycles they tend to rescan, remamo, ultrasound etc to see how things are going. Apart from that they didn't really talk too much about progress.
Once surgery is done and pathology has been done on tumour they often know a bit more but ER+ is good as targeted therapy to kill off ER is available. I am HER2- too. It would probably be better for us to be HER2+ as Herceptin at the moment is proving very successful at treating and ensuring that the cancer doesn't return. But - status means we can't have Herceptin. Don't know too much about it but from what I understand it was a protein that made the tumour grow which Herceptin will kill off if we have a positive status.
RT essential if you have any positive nodes which indicated a spread already from the primary tumour. They will want to kill off any thing left behind on a micro level. Premenopausal women with positive nodes tend to get all the treatments Chemo, surgery, RT and hormone therapy to blitz everything in sight.
Glad you are feeling well post blast no 2. D