Chemo: Round V

Today is round five in Christopher's chemo treatments and Dr. Kirby was very pleased with how the chemo is progressing. He said Christopher has signigifcant shrinkage of the cancer on his liver. There are three masses that they are keeping their eye on and using as their measuring sticks. They vary in size, the largest being roughly 8cm, and all three have shrunk about 1cm or more (but no more than 1.5cm). I was trying to figure out in my head what percent of shrinkage that was and if I had to make an educated guess, I would say between 5-10%.

Christopher will be on chemo for a few more months before he gets a break since everything is looking good. In roughly two more months Christopher will have another scan to see how much more shrinkage there is and I hope and pray that there is even more!

I wish I could throw out some number to show how much his CEA blood markers have dropped, but the lab is backed up and we don't have that much information yet. All we do know as of right now is that the Doctor is VERY PLEASED with his progress and told him to keep up the good work.

Thank you all for keeping us in your prayers and as soon as I know anything more, I'll pass it along!

CHEMO UPDATE: We got the CEA markers back (CEA test for tumor markers that are molecules occurring in blood or tissue that are associated with cancer and whose measurement or identification is useful in patient diagnosis or clinical management.)! Before chemo (july 3, 2007) his markers were at 3316 (up 500pt from when he was in the hospital), and as of today... 922. Yep 922, over a 70% drop. In the words of Christopher's doctor, "that's damn good!"