As background:
My wife was diagnosed with primary oesophageal cancer in 2019, and was successfully treated at the time via a combination of chemo- and radiotherapy, followed by Ivor Lewis surgery. Unfortunately, in September of last year (2022) she was diagnosed with two secondary tumours, and we have since been dealing with those. We know that the disease is incurable, but we of course want to maximize the symptom-free time which we might be granted. To treat the secondaries, my wife had chemo from about October 2022 to March 2023. That treatment was very successful in ameliorating the symptoms, and we have just returned from a long holiday which we were able to take as a result. However, some nasty symptoms have now recurred, and a CT scan shows that growth of the tumours is the cause.
We are now at the stage where we need to discuss future treatment with the oncology team (in whom I have complete faith.)
An early discussion with the oncologists suggested that radiotherapy wasn't a viable option (it wouldn't be tolerated in the area in which one of the tumours is growing), but also that further chemotherapy also probably wasn't viable because experience shows that multiple rounds of chemo aren't effective against secondary oesophageal cancer.
Of course, we will fully discuss this with our oncology team. However, my question to this forum is:
Has anybody actually had multiple rounds of chemo against secondary oesophageal cancer? And, if so, what was the outcome?
Thanks in advance.
