Hello, A relative has been diagnosed with a 10 cm tumour in the lower part of the oesphagus plus 2 associated nodes. Chemo to shrink the tumour followed by an op. What will the side effects of the chemo be. Can immunotherapy be used instead?
Sorry to hear about your relative. If the multidisciplinary team have decided on a treatment plan which includes surgery they are looking at a cure; to make the patient cancer free!
Sometimes one of the difficult things is to trust the clinical team. But they have all the scans and test results and will be experienced in dealing with this kind of cancer, which I’m sorry to say is becoming all to common. There is more than a single treatment plan, but each is tailored to the patient and their particular presentation and staging aimed at the best possible outcome.
I had my chemotherapy eight years ago. Some centres have moved away from the drugs that I had, but most people find the chemo isn’t as bad as they had feared. Had I not been retired I would have been able to keep working throughout my ten weeks chemo. I had some hair loss and slight nausea. The worst part for me was not being able to eat certain foods because my ability to fight infection. So smoked salmon, soft cheese, undercooked eggs were all banned over that Christmas period. But look at me now! Recovery from the surgery took a while but I’m fitter and happier now than I have ever been.
Your family needs to rally round, get the patient down the gym to build up strength and stamina - even during chemo - in order to be in the best place to recover from the op.
As BrentS says the proposed treatment plan is a curative route proposed by your MDT that will give you the best probability of being cancer free.
To answer your questions everyone reacts to chemo differently. I had FLOT --> Surgery --> FLOT and found the second cycle (post op) chemo harder to tolerate than the surgery! I lost my hair twice (on both cycles), loads of weight, and felt very ill after completing my treatment. But it was a success and I'm still in remission from my treatment 3 years ago.
I could not work during my treatment due to "chemo-fog", and decided to retire early.
As for immunotherapy, I'm afraid it is still in it's infancy for solid tumours. I doubt you will be offered it in this country unless you have stage 4 cancer (which you don't), and then only as a clinical trial? I did investigate this when I was diagnosed as a treatment path for me if my NHS treatment path failed. It would of been very expensive ($500,000) and probably not worked.
My advice would be to accept the treatment offered by your MDT and try and maintain a positive attitude throughout your treatment.
