Tumor Markers, Ibrance or Xeloda

Sue,

Ibrance did absolutely nothing for me but make me too ill to enjoy life. At the 6 month scans, it was clear that my cancer was not fooled by Ibrance even a little bit so we moved on to Xeloda. I found it to be far easier on my system, and it worked for 14 months. Before the Ibrance I maintained NED status for 5 years on Faslodex so obviously our cancers respond differently to these treatments.

Susan [who once had curly hair too]

My TM Ca15.3 declined on AC and continued to decline on 3 cycles of Ibrance/Letrozole. It is now 67. Will see next week what TM is doing on 4th cycle. How is tumor load measured?

please tell me something positive ... I am about to start war on cancer with ibrance and amidrex . stage IV breast metastised no chemo ,no rrad, no surgery...just ibrance and arimidex.. pray for me i'm a newbie with hope. 2nd occurance now IV.. I'm scared but trust OCO should I ?

Thank you Zarovka for explaining the terminology "tumor load".

Deborajoy, there is a good topic titled "Ibrance" in the Stage IV section that might help your anxiety. It was started by a lovely woman named Hope, who sadly left us last year. I would go back about 6 months as there are quite a few posts. It has helped me as I was diagnosed Stage IV in Oct 2016 and started Ibrance/letrozole in Jan 2017. I have completed 4 cyles (following IV chemo AC) and it has really helped with tumor death.

Sorry you are here, but the folks on BCO community are very supportive.

[A little back story: I suddenly became severely anemic in January. Whist trying to find the cause of the anemia, they did a bone marrow biopsy which showed the metastasized breast cancer. This was in April. It was a shock as no one on either side of my family had ever had any type of cancer. In fact, I'd had a mammogram in June of 2016 which was completely normal. February of this year I'd had an ultrasound of the breasts . . . no cancer found. But in April, my HGB was 8.5 and I had to have two packed red cell transfusions. My mammogram and ultra sound still showed nothing, and the PET scan showed no active tumors, but when they did a 3D mammogram, they found a diffuse tumor on the distal side of the right breast, and two malignant lymph glands in the right axilla. They have not done surgery.]

I have Stage IV Metstatic Invasive Lobular Pleomorphic Carcinoma of the Breast. I was diagnosed in May 2017. I began Letrozol and IBRANCE in June. My tumor marker was 400. I was on 125 mg of IBRANCE. I was on it for three weeks and off for one week. Had my labs done in July and the WBC was down from 4.8 to 1.3 and but my HGB was up to 9.7 and my tumor marker had fallen to 176. So my doc told me to hold off of the IBRANCE for one more week, then I restarted it with a lower dose (100 mg.), which I took for 3 weeks, then I was off for one week. The only side effects I've noticed are some slight thinning of my hair, a small growth of black stiff chin hairs, and my voice deepening from Soprano to Tenor (due to the estrogen blocker).

In August at my follow-up appointment, my tumor marker was 109.2. The HGB was up to 11.2 and the WBC was up to 3.0!!!

In September my tumor marker was 78.6, my HGB was 11.8, and my WBC was still 3.0.

In October my tumor marker was 55.5, my HGB was 12.5, and my WBC was still 3.0.

Nov. 2nd my tumor marker was 45.2, my HGB was 12.1 and my WBC was 3.6.

Nov. 30th, my tumor marker was 41.2, my HGB was 12.2, and my WBC was 2.9 (a bit worrisome).