Mid-treatment Scans

If the diagnosis has been made and you are in the middle of a course of treatment, why might your physicians order scans?

Your physicians are not just curious, checking on what's happening the way you might take a peek in the oven to see if your cake is rising. Mid-treatment scans help your physicians know if they should stay the course or not.

In 1995, my oncologist prescribed chemo for my 4th recurrence. When my three-month follow-up scans showed disease progression, he changed my chemo drugs. Three months later, scans showed the new treatment regimen was working. Had we waited until I'd completed the full course of the first treatment, my recurrence would have been farther along.

Using signs and symptoms instead of serial scans to determine disease progression makes sense if -- and only if -- the statistics for disease control and survival are the same no matter how advanced the disease.

This is why some patients with certain types of cancer can be approached with "watch and wait." Treating them now does not offer any measurable benefit in life expectancy compared to treating later, if their disease progresses.

The issue comes down to weighing the risks versus the benefits for the particular test in the particular patient. As discussed in the OT column entitled, "Only a Click Away," Healthy Survivors discuss with their physicians the risks of both radiation exposure and undiagnosed disease progression before proceeding with diagnostic tests.

Comments

[Kairol Rosenthal]

Excellent post. Hopefully we will continue to find safe (or safer) ways of checking the impact of a drug mid-treatment to determine if it should be continued or a new one tried.

I am on wait and watch right now. It is a whole different mental ball game to adjust to, but over time, the emotional reality of it is catching up with the practical reality of it and it is making a whole lot of sense as the way to treat me right now.

Best,
Kairol
http://everythingchangesbook.com/