progress and next steps

I had an MRI a couple of weeks ago and got the results last week. There has been slight progression in all three tumours in the brain.That ' s the bad news.The good news is that there are no new tumours and that my spine and cerebrospinal fluid remain clear, with no detectable cancer. This means that the Herceptin must be doing something for things to be progressing relatively slowly.We just have to figure out how to make it better at its job.There is very little research, when it comes to leptomeningeal disease (orleptomeningeal carcinomatosis), so in lots of ways we are making things up as we go along. The first thing we are going to do is increase the dose of Herceptin and to try and slow the drug down as it enters my brain.At tomorrow ' s treatment, we are going to increase the dosage from 60mg to 80mg. The Ommaya Reservoir only holds 60mg and at the end of treatment, the oncologist usually empties it by pumping (really just pressing down on it a few times). Tomorrow, once it is empty, he will add another 20mg and let it drip down over time into the brain.The next step (we have not determined when) will be to add methotrexate. Herceptin has been shown to be more effective when used in concert with a chemotherapy drug and methotrexate has been shown to be safe for intrathecal treatment (directly into the brain, either through the Ommaya Reservoir or a lumbar puncture).You may have noted my use of the word " we " . More than at any stage of treatment, this process has been ...
Source: Not just about cancer - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: brain metastasis breast cancer chemotherapy health care herceptin metastatic things i do for my health weird Source Type: blogs