Todays appointment was very informative, we got a lot of questions answered. First and foremost, the Doctor thinks we need to get the tumor out, which we are all for! Second, Dr. Curti has staged Cleve at a stage III cancer. It is his belief that the location on the sacrum does not coincide with the characteristics of a metastasis of melanoma; its an abnormal place for it to show up. Great news! However, we will closely monitor the area and if there are any changes we will have another biopsy performed. Dr. Curti did say it is not out of the questions though, he gave it a 1 in 1500 chance that it is metastatic, we'll take those odds.
He then went over possible treatment plans for stage III and IV. For stage III it is the doctors opinion that an interferon treatment would not be very beneficial to Cleve which is the standard of treatment at this time. Interferon, he said, works great on women with unpalpable lymph nodes...the complete opposite of Cleve. He is conducting a study though using a vaccine. The study breaks the participants into two groups. 2/3 of the group get the vaccine, 1/3 gets a placebo injection. This is after the resection of the tumor is performed and he is healed from the surgery. If he does happen to be in the placebo group and there is a change for the worse in his cancer, he would be pulled from the study and treated accordingly. I should note that the study is nearly completed and they are only taking about a hundred more patients. This is a good sign because if the trial was unsafe, the plug would have already been pulled.
If we end up looking at a stage IV, treatment would be shots of interleukin-2 or IL-2. Cleve's sample of the tumor is being tested for a BRAF gene. If it is present then a vaccine could be made into a possible treatment. This, however, would only keep the cancer away for only a few months at best.
Dr. Curti made it very clear to us that in Cleve's case a cure is a long shot and that what the treatments would be doing is holding off the cancer for as long as we can until it returns and then we deal with it all over again. He said it was a matter of quality of life instead of a cure. I think we kind of new that. Melanoma is an elusive yet very aggressive cancer, we just need to treat it accordingly. And so tomorrow...actually this morning, we are taking off for Houston to get a second opinion and see if there are any other options available for Cleve. Keep your fingers crossed.
A special thank you to Yaser for coming along, taking notes and asking wonderfully insightful questions that will aid us in making the best decision for Cleve. And to Jennifer and Angie for taking care of the little monsters during our appointment. They had a ball with you guys and didn't want to leave, Gavin was actually mad at us for taking him away. And to Steve and Tina for opening their home to us for the weekend, we had a wonderful time and made some nice memories as well.
Ok, im about pooped out so it is bed time for me. I will keep everyone posted on Thursdays visit. Goodnight.
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