Lymph node and blood vessels involvement, but no chemo

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Hello everyone,

I am 46 and was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in March.

I went to theatre for a bowel resection the end of April, however they couldn’t do the surgery as my uterus was too heavy from fibroids to move out of the way. I then had 4 cycles of Capox whilst waiting the 3 months for the next surgery. Beginning of September I had a full hysterectomy, bowel resection and formation of a temporary ileostomy.

My histology has come back showing that I have active cancer cells in 8 of the 35 nodes removed, including some blood vessel involvement and one that was away from my tumours. They found I had 2 tumours, one stage 3 and one stage 4 that had moved into my ovary. This has all been surgically removed and shows good clearance.

The plan is now no more chemo, as my tumour had minimal or no response to the Capox, and I’ve been told no other treatment is available for this at this point. So now I’m on 3 month bloods and 6 month CT scans.

I’m struggling with the no treatment plan as the cells were found in lymph and blood vessels, and I’m just waiting for it to pop up elsewhere. I have been told that as I had my treatment back to front to normal (chemo then surgery) there are limited clinical trials to refer to form an alternative plan. My surgeon has been amazing and is supporting with a second opinion. I am seeing another local oncologist this week to discuss, but will also refer onto Marsden or Christie’s from there if I wish.

Any information about how others treatment has gone with similar path to mine, would be very much appreciated.

Maninbath 15 days ago

Hi Charlie78,

All I can offer is a little bit of perspective. When I had my bowel resection they removed 31 lymph nodes of which 22 and some associated blood vessels were cancerous. I underwent 6 rounds of chemotherapy before it was stopped due to the on-set of non-epileptic seizures. I was Stage 4 within a year but have received no active treatment bar an injection to help maintain bone density since that time (other than pain management medication). For comparison: 23% of your removed lymph nodes were cancerous whereas it was 71% for me, which might explain why they are currently not suggesting mop-up chemotherapy.

As I said I hope this information provides some perspective and a little bit of comfort.

Best wishes for the future.

Maninbath

Darkmoor77 12 days ago

Hello. I’m had a T4 tumor in my sigmoid colon, it had gone into my blood vessels, lymph nodes and nerves. I had no chemo prior to my surgery but started 6 months of Capox 2 months after my surgery. I often wonder why I wasn’t offered chemo first as it seems many others have been? I’m unsure why they wouldn’t want you to have chemo but maybe it’s because you’ve already had it so to speak?? Sorry I’m not much help. It’s good you are getting a second opinion

Darkmoor77 12 days ago in reply to Darkmoor77

Oh just to add it was in three of my lymph nodes which made me high risk of the cancer returning which is why I’m having 6 months of Capox rather than 3