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DCA Discussion Forum
mikeleekc
Member since Jun-28-09
2 posts |
Jul-13-09, 00:14 AM (PST) |
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"DCA and PET-CT scan"
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Hi everyone,
My dear wife was diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma about 2.5 months ago. She underwent treatment in the form of chemo-embolism, HIFU, targeted chemo and CIK. Judging from her general health recovery the treatment has definitely worked to some extent. However, she now has to wait for 2 months before undergoing another CT and PET scan to evaluate the success of the treatment. A PET scan done any earlier may result in false positives as the tumor site may still be inflamed from the treatment. During this period, my wife is not prescribed any chemotherapy/radiation. I feel rather nervous about this and would prefer to put her on DCA for these 2 months as an added measure of precaution.
However, I am concerned that the DCA action on any remnant viable cancer cells may cause false positives to appear on the PET scan later on.
Is this a reasonable concern that I should be worried about?
I will be grateful to listen to anyone's opinion/experience on this matter.
My DCA order will arrive me by tomorrow and I will have to make a decision of what to do soon.
Thanks.--
Michael
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mikeleekc
Member since Jun-28-09
2 posts |
Jul-17-09, 07:25 AM (PST) |
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2. "RE: DCA and PET-CT scan"
In response to message #1
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I just met my wife's oncologist and he said that if the DCA works, it may cause a false negative on the PET scan. His reasoning was that DCA will probably inhibit the high glucose uptake by the cancer cells. Unfortunately, this activity is the basis for the PET scan. Therefore, he advised against it.
I am thinking of the following alternative. My wife's PET scan is on the 10th of August. That's about 24 days away. Based on a half life of DCA being 1 day, I constructed a simple spreadsheet model which showed that irrespective daily dosage, the highest concentration in the body will be at Day 11 from the start of dosing. It will also take approximately 11 days to completely clear from the body once the medication is stopped.
Now I am thinking of starting my wife on DCA and then stop dosing her 11 days from the PET scan. That way, it may not complicate the PET scan. However, I am not sure whether there is any residual effect of DCA even after it is cleared off from the body.
I think there are many of us here who have undergone conventional chemotherapy followed by a PET scan.
Can anyone be kind enough to share with me what the length of time was between your last chemo and the PET scan?
This will probably the best estimate of the number of days to stop DCA before PET.Another concern I have- Will breaking the daily DCA treatment as mentioned above increase the likelihood of the tumor becoming resistant to DCA? Thanks for any answers,opinions or sharing your experiences. Best regards,
Michael |
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robmx
Member since May-25-09
10 posts |
Sep-01-09, 10:52 AM (PST) |
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5. "RE: DCA and PET-CT scan"
In response to message #4
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I found this paper on DCA and related to age dependency of Neuropathy. Hope this was not posted before. http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/reprint/324/3/1163 When using DCA I based my dosage on it having a half life of 24 hours. Maybe that is way off. 2 gm a day worked out to a total accumulation of 4 gm in body in my calculation but if the half life is not 24 hours and if whatever it is it changes with usage then I have no idea what the accumulation might have been. I am 65 which might suggest that DCA stays around for awhile. Any thoughts? |
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