Ibrance (Palbociclib)

Sunshine99,

Great news!

Sunshine, that is great news. Yay

Congrats Sunshine!

Sunshine, Super news!! Congrats

Congrats sunshine!! Woo hoo!

Bone scan came back relatively stable, very slight progression. So I'll take it as stable mable. This is the 2nd bone scan where its said relatively stable and noted small increases instead of a straight stable like other scans.

Deep breath, CT tomorrow. Curious how lungs look ( nodule in lower right lobe and air sacs irritation bottom of both lungs keeping eye on, popped up last February) and if they still see haze in the mesentery that was noted last scan that they say was in previous scan to that but not noted in report. Spleen has always shown nodules (and an accessory spleen, ha!) and calcification which they attributed to chemo damage when first diagnosed stage IV. Let's see what my insides have to say this go around.

Hope your having fun April on your birthday getaway!

Quick question - how come some ladies are getting bone scans? I brought it up with onc this month if there was ever a reason to do the bone scan again and she said unlikely as the CT and every 6-8 months full spine MRI will pick up anything to be picked up (obv with scans moved up if reporting pain). My mets aren't diffuse, though, does that make a difference?

Sondra,

I also think to some extent it's a matter of doctor preference. My MO isn't totally crazy about nuclear bone scans, but she will order them maybe once a year or so. She's also not crazy about MRIs, but they do seem to show a lot more detail for me. I hate those stupid bone scans!!! I also get CTs. Those seem to be my doc's main preference. In fact, after just having two different MRIs of my back (covering the thoracic and lumbar spines) today she wrote me something about getting a CT soon -- I almost lost it. I think we are very inefficient in the US about blood work and scans, and sometimes it's like the docs are throwing a dart and hoping to find something.

I've never had a bone scan and my MO has never mentioned one. Just CT every 3 mos.

Miss Rabbit...so glad your bone scan shows only small increases. In your pocket for tomorrow.

This is an interesting comparison on our scans. I get Nuclear Med (bone) and CT scans every three months. I'm one year into my mets diagnosis and will see my MO tomorrow. I'm assuming, she'll want to continue with the 3-month schedule. I've only had a couple of MRI's since my mets diagnosis. The most recent one was because I had a couple of weird incidences of severe dizziness - like my head was buzzing. The MRI didn't show anything of concern.

We'll see what she says tomorrow.

Thank you Rabbit, RosieRed, Tanya for the well wishes, I am home now from the hospital on oral antibiotics, after having febrile neutropenia. Oncologist said we can re-start ibrance at a lower dose once my blood work is back in normal range, although I definitely feel a bit nervous about trying it again! It seems like the efficacy of ibrance is the same no matter what dose you're on, though?

Congrats to Sunshine, and woo-hoo to Rabbit for your recent bone scan results! Hope the next one is positive, too. Also hope AprilGirl is having a great birthday on the Oregon coast, so beautiful there!

Sorry to hear you joined the mets group GoKale. I initially had nausea but it went away after several months. The side effects get better as time goes on. I used to drink ginger ale to help with the nausea. My MO also prescribed some anti nausea meds which I used a few times.

Cross- posting-----

Ok, I got my Guardant 360 results. Does anyone know about how to read the report???

From what I can tell, Negative. I mean no help.

Says.... "No reportable tumor-related somatic alterations were detected in this patient's sample. This may be due to either absence of reportable mutations in the tumor itself or low levels of ctDNA.".

So, what next? Not showing ESR mutation, so AI still working? Not showing Rb mutation, so CDK still working? So why progression? And where do I go from here?

Wonder how much I will owe for this test, and no more information to work with.

Candy- That is the key question- what has happened that enabled the mets to grow on current therapy? Perhaps there are major ways that endocrine resistance develops that are yet to be discovered by science (but how can that be possible, after all of the research)? Anyway, the existing system is not at all clear about guiding us to next steps. Plus we need the FES-PET scans to at least tell us whether the cancer still depends on the estrogen receptor or not, where is the national strategy to roll these things out?! And then you have to wait four months or so to find out if the next step is even working..

Thank you Chicago. That ia exactly what I need