Cancer and an autoimmune disease

Tink16

Does anyone out there have an autoimmune disease AND cancer? My moms cancer metastized to the bones and a few days ago we found out it went to the ovaries, pelvis and the liver. She was also diagnosed with Rhumatoid Arthritus. She is in tremendous pain and the medicine she needs to take for her RA interferes with her cancer. She is going to start strong chemo in a few weeks because it spread.

leaf

I would think it would be pretty tough to say whether or not RA decreases her life expectancy or not. 

Some of the reasons why I say that is:

a) Its a pretty tough call to predict the course of breast cancer alone.  Many women call it ' a crap shoot'.

b)There is some concern about the feasibility of radiation therapy in people with collagen vascular diseases.  This is probably a controversial area, but this paper from Yale thought that RA should not be a contraindication for radiation treatment. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11769860.  She will undoubtedly want to check with her docs about this though - radiation is one treatment for some mets.

This  1996 anecdotal report found 3 people who had arthritic flares after their chemo stopped. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8923380

c)This study, which is more than 25 years old, found RA people had a larger mortality than cancer patients without RA.  Note that the therapies for both breast cancer and RA have changed quite a bit in the last 25 years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3970042

I know this must be very hard to watch your mother go through this.  You are making tough choices with lots of unknows.  May she find the way that is best for her.

BellydancerinNJ

I was diagnosed with Wegener's Granulomatosis when I was 15 in 1995, an uncommon autoimmune disease.  I was off all medication by 2001.  I was diagnosed with bc this past February at 28 and my doc told me that since chemo is immunosuppressive anyway I shouldn't worry about the Wegener's being triggered.  I got very very sick with Wegener's and it nearly killed me, but once they figured out what it was and were treating it I was able to go in remission and have been ever since.  I'm halfway through chemo and no Wegener's problems.  

I'm sorry I can't give you more specific info about RA.  Good luck to your mom, let me know if you have any questions.

Caroline 

Anonymous

I have MS, and when I went through my chemo portion of treatment, I was really worried about having flare-ups, and if my MS would spin out of control. 

As it turns out, chemo and MS are quite fond of one another, and my MS was really great the entire time.  Chemo drugs are now sometimes used to help MS patients! 

Like Leaf said, pretty much everything associated with breast cancer is a crap shoot. 

Good luck, and come here anytime!  

mmb1

I have RA that was pretty intense when I was first diagnosed in '94 but has been very mild for the last 7 or 8 years.  I had chemo in 2006 and was also afraid about a flare-up.  My onc told me the same thing that whoopsiedoodles said above; that chemo and RA are fond of eachother.  I had no RA flare ups and in fact felt even less stiff during chemo than I normally feel.

I hope your mom has the same result with the chemo actually abating the pain from RA.

MM