Questions about recurrence of peritoneal cancer

Hi Vania,

Thanks very much for getting in touch and welcome to our online community, I hope you find it supportive.

I’m sorry to read that your CA125 has started to increase. It’s completely understandable to have questions about which treatment is best for you, especially as your levels lowered with chemotherapy.

Usually if an ovarian cancer comes back it is treated with chemotherapy, targeted therapies and sometimes surgery.

I’m wondering if the chemotherapy you had was a platinum based one. You may have heard of ‘carboplatin’ which is a platinum-based drug and can be given either on its own or with another chemotherapy called ‘paclitaxel’. This is a common regime for first line treatment for ovarian cancer.

After having these types of drugs and a cancer comes back, the doctors either call it a ‘platinum sensitive’ cancer or ‘platinum resistant’ cancer. This link explains other treatments that might be offered including hormone and targeted therapy in this situation.

It’s so difficult for the nurses on this platform to advise on specific treatments in individual situations, as we are separate from the NHS and don’t have access to medical records. I appreciate you have tried to get in touch with your hospital team and finding it difficult to speak with your oncologist.

If you have a clinical nurse specialist, I encourage you to get in contact with them, as they do have access to your medical records and can answer specific questions you have, or speak with your consultant for you.

This will give you the opportunity to ask about your risk of the cancer affecting other organs in your body while on Tamoxifen.

I hope this information is helpful but if you have any more questions please don’t hesitate to get back in touch.

Take care and best wishes,

Sarah (cancer information nurse specialist)

Our ref: PN