Preventing Surgery-Induced Metastasis

Nan56143

When my daughter had an ultrasound in May of 2007, the radiologist's reading was a "fibroadenoma cyst". After a screwed up surgery, where the surgeon cut in to the "cyst", and did not get clean margins, he discovered it was a malignant tumor. The dx was TNBC. After reading this article in the December issue of Life Extension magazine, I am determined to let every woman/person I know, that possibly what their surgeons are doing is causing metastasis. This article has 102 references, and if a surgeon does not follow these procedures/protocol, then if it was me, I would find a surgeon who shared my philosophy on "first do no harm". How I wish for my daughter Lori's sake, that we could go back in time, but sadly we cannot.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2009/dec2009_Preventing-Surgery-Induced-Cancer-Metastasis_01.htm 

This is the last paragraph in this article...

As this article was going to press, a dedicated team of clinical oncologists and researchers are preparing a meticulous report on the optimal doses of nutrients and drugs that a cancer patient should consider during the pre- and post-operative period. You can obtain a free copy of this report by logging on to our Cancer Surgery Special Report or calling 1-800-841-5433.

deni63

Great article Nan. Thanks for posting! It actually confirms a lot of the supplements that I have been taking are powerful cancer fighters. It is always nice to read that!

CrunchyPoodleMama

Dear Nan, I am still so grateful to you for sending me this article several weeks ago. (I should have asked you if you had already shared it here... I assumed that you had... it's definitely "must-read" info for anyone undergoing surgery!)

I took several of the recommended supplements after my biopsy, and even more of them before and after my surgery. It's mildly reassuring to know that there are PROVEN ways to reduce the risk of metastases (especially when the surgeon didn't get clean margins, as mine didn't).

THANK YOU again so much for sharing this!

Yazmin

Dear Nan:

This article is a tresor trove of information. Thanks for sharing it. I have read before about the fact that surgery itself could actually be detrimental (that was an article from Dr. Ralph Moss in his newsletter "Cancer Decisions"). Here, Life Extension does a fantastic job out of explaining exactly the mechanism by which surgery could spread cancer.

Luckily, I have been on many of the supplements/nutrients mentioned in the article for quite a while, now. I am planning to add seaweeds and other supplements in the near future. As time goes, I am more and more comfortable with my decision of cutting back on the aggressive screening and "preventive" treatments that several oncologists have tried very hard to put me on.....

Again, thank you for this potentially life-saving information.

Merilee

Nice article. I too have been on many of the supplemets but will look into the others that I had not heard of. Thanks for posting this. I wish our doctors would learn this stuff along with us.

Merilee

CrunchyPoo

When is your next surgery?

Nan56143

Merilee, Julia, Yazmin and deni,

What I did not write was, that a month after Lori's "screwed up surgery", she then had the mastectomy, and that surgeon did get clean margins. However, the damage was already done. Of course this procedure/protocol was not implemented. I could not post this link as it was not available until now on the Life Extension site.

How is it possible that the surgeons are not aware of this information? Do they not read of the latest techniques, and life saving procedures? Is this the primary reason that thousands if not millions are developing mets?  This along with the fact that a person is told they cannot take any vitamins/supplements, and are told to even avoid certain foods, if they are taking chemo and rads, as they "may" alter the effects of treatments? The med and rad oncs can prescribe drugs, one after another, during treatments, and the side effects are horrendous and sometimes last for years. This has to stop.

deni63

It took three surgeries for my surgeon to get clean margins. When my onc heard this he was really upset that the surgeon went in so many times. My NK cells are at a good level, so that is a good sign, but I am still concerned and have been keeping a close eye on making sure I have bloodwork done and an upcoming ultrasound to monitor.

UGH!!!

CrunchyPoodleMama

CrunchyPoo

When is your next surgery?

Hee hee, "CrunchyPoo" made me smile!

Tentatively it's planned for the 16th, but that will be confirmed tomorrow. (I'm on the hospital's schedule but not my surgeon's, yet... weirdly enough.)

It really HAS to be that date or it's not going to happen. He only does surgery on Wednesdays, and the last two Wednesdays of the year, he's off for the holidays. Then my good insurance ends.

THREE surgeries, Deni... that's awful!! I'm scared something like that will happen with me... my microcalcifications area was just so huge. 

Nan56143

Just one more reason to take BHRT. I just posted this link on the bio-identical hormone thread, but here are just a few paragraphs from this link/article.(DTZ is Dr. David T. Zava.)

http://www.johnleemd.com/store/hbh-081001.html#about_breast_cancer

DTZ: Exactly. When you cut through a tumor when the patient is estrogen dominant you're going to have some problems. Natural killer cell function will be suppressed locally because of the excessive estrogen forming around the tumor. That's a setup for poor immune response.

Excess estrogens also encourage blood vessel growth (vascularization) and cause the expansion of the capillaries, allowing small clumps of tumor cells to escape to distant sites (metastasis). To make matters worse, high estrogen enhances blood clotting, and small clots form around clusters of tumor cells, making recognition by the already compromised natural killer cells even more difficult. In other words, the chance of metastasis is much greater under conditions of estrogen dominance.

We should be doing a clinical study to look at the effects of progesterone prior to breast surgery, in order to lower the estrogen burden, to lower the rate of cell proliferation, to increase natural killer cell function, to do all the things that are going to increase the probability that a woman is going to survive the breast cancer. If she's operated on without being protected like that, and she's making loads of estrogen and all these profiles are off, then the probability that the cancer cells are going to escape and set up a metastatic site is much higher.

The Mohr study looked at different phases of the menstrual cycle, and found that women who had high levels of progesterone in their bloodstream at the time of surgery were twice as likely to be alive at 10 to 15 years compared to women who had a low progesterone level. It's surprising to me that we haven't done the obvious-give a woman progesterone for a couple of weeks prior to her surgery, look at what's happening to the cancer cells short term, and follow disease-free and overall survival patterns long term.

From the Chang study we know that 20 to 30 mg of progesterone applied directly to the breasts 10 to 13 days prior to surgery reduces the rate of breast cell proliferation, and we know it helps fibrocystic breasts, which is excessive stimulation by estrogen.

We should be studying this in great detail. There's no question at all that progesterone is protective, but because physicians don't have large-scale clinical studies, they won't use it at a critical time when a woman is having breast surgery. Strange, they have no problems using highly toxic chemotherapy or tamoxifen, but are hesitant to try natural progesterone, which is the body's natural anti-estrogen.

Nan56143

I found this article while searching for one related to vitamin K2. If I have heard/read it once, I have heard/read it probably 500 times since my daughter was dx. "You cannot take any supplements while taking chemo and rads...as it "MAY" lessen the effects of chemo/rads". Here is an article which states the opposite, and I am looking for another related to this one. I tried to copy and paste a few sentences, but am unable to do so.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:2AhZRCkD29AJ:www.drsimone.com/Antioxidants_Part_I.pdf+published+findings+on+vitamin+K2+by+Sloan+Kettering&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjkQwt7EXCwTk8QHqOiGWzpJu-VTLnI6DIpZrCdnPGrhhKu0RVhnGYkVac8Vr_Ihu-Dlp7BpQ0dAuaWNSIgkOjp6VdI_MH7sk1Kb4zPpgNR5sAFP2LiBXsr-9wM1VkNSO0PyuNK&sig=AHIEtbQdqN-yfSz-cV8fjjLWpvoCMNBVXg

MsBliss

Dear Nan,

K2:  Here's what I know.   If you are taking high doses of D3, then taking K2 will help prevent calcium from building up in the arteries and it will help protect calcium leach from the bones.  I am still working on the dosage, but for now, take up to 200 micrograms, NOT milligrams, a day.

Please let me know how you and daughters are doing!

Bliss

Joy232

This is a very interesting article.  I am curious if this applies to breast reconstruction and any other surgeries a person might have years after bc treatment. 

MBJ

Nan!

 I am so happy to have found you here and your post!  I haven't been on either the TNBC site nor this site for quite a while now.  I hope you remember me.  How are you and your daugters doing? 

I have really good news!  At almost the last minute I found out I could go to the Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles very close to my home.  If you recall, I was scheduled to go to City of Hope and they wanted to cut off my breast, radiate the hell out of it and then wait a year or so to do reconstruction and I was pretty devasted by their insensitive treatment towards me. 

So, a couple of months ago, a woman asked me why don't I go to Norris.  I had never heard of them nor were they mentioned in the package I received from the American Cancer Society as an option.  I looked them up on the internet and found out they took MediCal .so I had my oncologist look into it and he got me a referal so I could go there.  To make a long story short, I had my unimastectomy on Tuesday with immediate delayed recon using Alloderm and expander.

I followed everything on Life Extensions as far as supplements prior to surgery.  I also did NO MORPHINE at the time of surgery.  If you read the Life Extensions article using Tramadol instead of Morphine increases your NK cells ability to fight.  Instead of fighting me on this my new Dr. was very curious about why and had his team look into it.  There isn't a huge body of evidence but enough that they let me go ahead.  I was given a local with 6 injections in my back to numb my entire back and front chest area plus I was given Tramadol as a general anesthesia.  Now, before surgery I was told I would probably just sleep and I wouldn't want to eat.  boy, did I surprise them!  They are now calling me their "model" patient.  I woke up 30 minutes after my 5 hour surgery and within two hours I was getting out of bed (with assistance) I ate a huge meal, I felt amazing and completely well and by the evening I could walk on my own.  I am doing really, really well.  This doctor actually tested my lymph nodes (City of Hope Dr. said it was unnecessary) prior to surgery, said I did not need radiation because he could clear the margins (which he did) and I find out tomorrow the results of the biopsy of my one lymph gland that had a micro cell of cancer in it (which I hope is just debri from surgery).

I have amazing doctors and only integrative doctors seem to know anything about this sort of thing!  Women all need to know so they can take charge of their own health.

Nan I hope you and your girls are all doing well.

Hugs,

Mary

Anonymous

Mary, you are awesome. I wish I had known about the connection between morphine and mets earlier. Thank you for your encouraging story about finding a doc that authorized no rads too. I didn't have rads either.

There is a small hospital and Georgia which knows about this cutting edge morphine information. Yet, some of the big prestigious hospitals in the cities don't. Also, the more up to date hospitals are even doing mastectomies with local anesthetic and sedation.

Nan56143

Dear dear Mary!!!

Oh sweetie I never forget the amazing women I have met in my life, and you are one of them I am thrilled that you were able to implement the procedures which may well save your life!! And...here it is only Sunday and you sound great!! Wonderful!

Please thank these doctors for me, for caring enough about you as a woman, and for not allowing their egos to get in the way. It is my hope that every woman reads this article before they have surgery, and insist that their surgeons follow the procedure. Who knows Mary...they may well begin to do all cancer surgeries this way at Norris. You may have been the first, but when they look at how well you did after surgery...this should tell them it works!!

Yes Mary my daughters and I are doing well...and I will email you the pictures from Lori's 48th birthday which was  last Wednesday. Please email me...keep in touch

Big hugs back at you sweetie.

Nancy

edited to add...did they give you the mistletoe right before surgery? I know you were supposed to get that while you were taking chemo...did you?

MBJ

My doctors are truly amazing.  My oncoplastic surgeon happens to be a specialist in Triple Negative Cancer (he has family memebers that he has treated so it's also personal for him) and he is also a research dr.  He is now doing a clinical trial on evaluating intraoperative radiotherapy following lumpectomy for the management of early stage invasive breast cancer.  The investigaion is evaluating partial breast radiotherapy given duuring surgery as an alternative to conventional whole breast radiotherapy given after surgery.  This would allow for the lumpectomy and radiotherapy to be done on the same day.

Eligibility:

40 or older

IDC measuring 3 cm or less

Must be able to be treated with a lumpectomy or segmentectomy

No lymph metastasis

This is all being done at USC Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles

www.targittrial.com 323-865-3368

MBJ

Nan,

No one in the states can do intravenous Mistletoe that I know of, but I am doing injections of it every third day which I ordered through Dr. Galitzer.  There is also an inexpensive product that can be ordered on line and it's sold by Native Remedies called Immunity Plus.  This has Mistletoe, Echinacia and many other helpful herbs in it.  I have to wait 2 weeks before taking this because it contains blood thinners but I had Dr. Galitzer muscle test me for it and he was very impressed by my response because I tested very positively for it and for those who can't afford the $188 to $300 per month plus dr visits, this is a great alternative to injectable Mistletoe. 

I could have gone home the very next day from surgery, however, last time I had surgery (and morphine) I had a pulminary embolism on my second night there so they kept me an extra day to make sure I didn't have a repeat performance.  Ladies, I have a high tolerance for pain but I have to say, I felt nothing.  Just a little bit of pain at the rib cage because of the expander and some slight pain where my drain tubes come out.  

Tell Lori Happy birthday--I can't wait to see her birthday pictures!

Hugs and  hope!

Mary XXXXXX