Here's Sarah in the 'hot seat' getting her weekly chemo today and enjoying a Panera salad (nice to have hubby along go get yummy lunch!).Well, we just got home from the oncologist where we got Sarah's liver MRI results. The good news is that her liver lesions did not get bigger (only one of the larger ones got slightly bigger and is 1.8cm) but overall the Taxotere continued to hold the liver mets at bay (The other organs and spine lesions visible in the MRI were also clear/stable). The bad news, of course, is that we were hoping to hear that they'd gotten another 30% smaller like last time! So, because Taxotere's side effects are likely to get more pronounced over time and it's effectiveness for Sarah has reached a plateau, she switched to a different chemo drug in the Taxane family. Recent studies have shown that Abraxane together with Herceptin is often even more effective & usually has less side effects. Sarah got her first treatment of Abraxane together with Herceptin today - we'll do this for 8 weekly treatments and then do another MRI to assess effectiveness.
Overall, I think we're ok for now - Sarah's cancer is not getting any worse and she's actually happy that Abraxane doesn't require taking the steroid Decadron, which has been causing her sleep problems, water retention & head-aches. So the next hurdle we are aware of is deciding if she needs to take something to treat her Pituitary macro-adenoma & that decision will come when she gets another test of her prolactin level in a few weeks. After that, the next liver MRI will be the big nail-biter.
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