Word: tumors
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...Snow's case, doctors removed his colon in 2005, and treated him with chemotherapy to eliminate any remaining cells and contain satellite growths that might have broken off from the primary tumor. After undergoing surgery to remove a growth from his right pelvic area, doctors discovered additional growths in his liver. According to Dr. Raymond DuBois, incoming provost of MD Anderson Cancer Center and a colon cancer specialist, it's not unusual to see additional growths several months or years following such a procedure. "Any time a patient comes in with a big tumor, we always worry about micrometastatic lesions...
...stage 4 disease, who has never been treated for cancer, faces approximately a 1 in 4 chance of being alive five years after treatment. But the odds are different - and lower - for someone who has already been treated and in whom the cancer is recurring. That's because the tumor cells that have continued to grow are resistant to whatever drug treatment has already been used...
...fall of 2004. The specifics of her treatment were not made public, but doctors say it's likely that, in addition to surgery and radiation, she's already received three of the most commonly used drugs - Adriamycin, Cytoxan and either Taxol or Taxotere. This potent regimen knocks out tumor cells and causes the familiar side effects of nausea and hair loss. If her original tumor was estrogen-sensitive - meaning growing in response to the hormone - then she is almost certainly taking an estrogen-blocking drug such as Tamoxifen. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Diary of Healing...
...Since those therapies failed to control her cancer, Edwards now faces treatment with other medications. If she's on hormone therapy, says Russell, the first step would be switching her to another kind; there are four or five options. If her tumor isn't sensitive to estrogen, she'd go straight to chemotherapy, but probably with a well-tolerated oral drug like Xeloda. These kinds of treatments are taken as pills and have relatively few side effects. Continuing to campaign while taking them doesn't seem unreasonable...
...fact that Elizabeth Edwards relapsed just a little over two years after initial treatment is a bad sign, suggesting that her cancer is very aggressive. On the plus side, though, is that Edwards' disease is "low volume", according to her oncologist, Lisa Carey of Chapel Hill, N.C., meaning little tumor is present. Also favorable, says Russell, is that "she's apparently in excellent health and she's having no symptoms...