Hello,
My mom has stage 4 breast cancer (diagnosed in 2012) which has metastasized to her spine (diagnosed March 2017). She has two tumors, one 2cm on her t5 and one 1cm on her t12. She has already received a 5 day course of non curative dose of radiation. From what we understood, it was either going to shrink the tumors or stop them from growing further, or nothing of course. Anyway, she has been in excruciating pain since and it is all radiating towards her ribs. We had a follow up CT done this Saturday which would've been exactly 7 weeks since her treatment finished. The report shows that the tumors have not grown but haven't shrunk either. We are looking to do more treatments and I can't across cyberknife when I was doing my research. If anyone can give me some feedback on which clinics to look into and whether my mom is a good candidate for the treatment would be amazing. Thank you for your time.
Cyberknife on spine - 1290691
aman11takhar
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Reply # - May 5, 2017, 08:41 AM
Hi Aman,
Hi Aman,
I'm sorry to hear about your mother.
Your post is timely. My father, who was diagnosed in 2015 with stage 4 non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with metastases to bone, brain and liver, recently completed Cyberknife treatment for 2 worsening mets in his lumbar spine at Stanford. Not sure where your mother lives, but there are 20 academic centers in the U.S., that are participating in a clinical trial studying Cyberknife or stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in treating localized spine mets (clinical trials.gov study number NCT00922974). I assume that your mother's oncologist should be able to refer her to the nearest center that does Cyberknife.
Whether someone is a good candidate depends on many factors. My father had to undergo more than 1 spine MRI before his radiation oncologist could clearly see specific area(s) in the spine to target.
Good luck with your search, and I wish your mother the best in her treatment.
Hope
Reply # - May 5, 2017, 06:45 PM
Hello Hope,
Hello Hope,
Thank you for your response, we will ask her oncologist.
I am also sorry to hear about your father. How is your dad doing after the treatment? I hope he's recovering well. We have found that a positive mind helps in these situations.Keep him as happy as possible!
Reply # - May 7, 2017, 10:11 AM
Hi aman11takhar,
Hi aman11takhar,
I'm sorry your mom is having such a difficult time. I didn't respond earlier because I didn't have anything to add to Hope's excellent post about your specific question. However I want to respond to your statement about your mom's pain. As you know there's never a 100% guarantee that symptoms of pain will be mitigated by radiation. Your mom's entire outlook can be elevated if she's able to get the pain under control. If she's not gotten it under control with pain medication speak to her treatment team about focusing on that.
I hope she's doing better.
All best,
Janine