Blog / Random thoughts and musings.

Chemo on; Chemo off; Chemo on…

Well, I sent an email to my oncologist (I love having a doctor who does email!) asking about the implications of the new pathology report’s comments about spontaneous regression and immunosuppressive causes, and he replied saying, in short, I still need the chemo:

“That statement was something I had never heard of in Hodgkins Disease, to be frank. There is no literature to support it, while there is some data in people on significant amount of immunosuppression with a Non Hodgkins Lymphoma subtype called PTLD but that’s different. 6MP is a miniscule form of immunosuppression, by the way (PTLD is associated with immunosuppression associated with organ transplant levels of immunosuppression). My and others impression is that if you wait, you run the risk of relapsing with a significantly higher stage of disease (and not as curable, potentially)”

He reviewed the findings with five other doctors, three in his practice, and two at the Johns Hopkins Cancer Center, and all agreed that chemo is really necessary. One of the Hopkins doctors summed it up pretty well:

“I would treat with ABVD [chemo] and hold the 6MP [immonosuppressant] at least during treatment. Hodgkin’s responding to withdrawal of immunosuppression is an interesting thought but I don’t think I would pursue it except in the context of a study.”

I’m still trying to set up my consultation at Hopkins, but based on this, I assume they’re going to say the exact same thing to me. So… chemo starts 11/29.