any advancements for stage 4 coloncancer treatment?

Question

my friend has stage 4 and I want to know what can be done for him

Answer 1

Stage 4 colorectal cancer is when a malignancy which started in the colon spreads to distant organs. The most common place for distant spread of colon cancer, by far, is the liver. However, this is not the only place it goes.

Colorectal cancer metastases to the liver can be managed by a number of means, and the field is advancing rapidly. Since I began as a surgeon, increasing evidence has been gathered that effective treatments can be rendered for some patients.

The primary method of treating stage 4 colon cancer is chemotherapy. Although removal of the involved portion of the colon is important, this does nothing to deal with the broad spread of disease, and the liver is where the tumor will do the most damage to the patient's health. New advances are being explored, but chemotherapy remains the standard.

In some cases, evaluation of the liver and the position of the tumor(s) leads to the conclusion that a surgical removal is feasible. This can be done at the time of surgery for the colon or afterward. One recent study has actually gone so far as to investigate treating the liver lesions first, and the results were promising. This is not the standard of care, as of now.

Additional options include the delivery of chemotherapy directly to the liver using a thin catheter which is run up the hepatic artery under x-ray guidance. This is called chemoembolization. Alternately, continuous infusions of chemotherapy into the liver can be delivered by way of surgically implanted chemotherapy pumps that tie directly into the hepatic artery system.

For lesions which are not surgically removable because of where they lie in relation to major blood vessels, there are now techniques for destroying the tumor where it lies, using a heating or freezing probe. This is called thermal ablation, and it has very promising results in the correctly selected patients.

Many people, however, cannot be offered these newer high-tech options. Each one has unique risks, and specific limitations. Many people who are found to have cancer in the liver which has spread from the colon actually have large numbers of small tumors, and treating some but not all would be futile and dangerous. The vast majority of colon cancer patients with liver metastases will get routine chemotherapy.

In general, the 5 year survival rate (percentage of people alive at 5 years from the time of diagnosis) for colon cancer is around 40% by the time it has spread to lymph nodes, and it may be as low as 5 or 10% by the time it goes to the liver.

Once the liver starts to suffer, the health status of the patient really takes a hit. Patients with sick livers sometimes don't have the energy to withstand heroic therapies, and sometimes the best thing is to do nothing, and make the best out of the amount of time left.

Be very cautious about playing up the possibility of experimental cancer treatments. People who are faced with mortality are sometimes eager to look for hope in desperate places. This is not often a good thing. By wasting time on seeking and undergoing futile treatments, sometimes patients will lose precious weeks and months of remaining life by hastening the very illness they are battling, or by just spending time in treatment centers that would better be spent in being with friends!

Good luck.

I hope that helps.

Answer 2

My wife was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer in March of 2003. She did the camptosar..I think....radiation was not applicable supposedly. We went to the Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in N.Y.C. for a second opinion. They said the IM clone(Martha Stewart drug) was having some success but they were only giving it out on a lottery basis not a compassionate one.Unfortunately my wifes liver suffered too much damage and she passed away in February 2004. I will keep your friend in my prayers and I wish your friend the best. I wish I was more helpful.

Answer 3

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