84 yr old female with recurrent Primary Peritoneal Cancer

My Mother in law is 84 and diagnosed with primary peritoneal/ovarian cancer in Aug 07. She was in tremendous pain with very bad ascites. She did 9 rounds of the traditional platinum/taxane drugs & debulking surgery in Jan 08.  All went very well.  One note - her CA 125 never got below 45. At one point it was over 1000. She pretty much sailed through the chemo without much trouble at all. It was a blessing. She finished her chemo in March 08.  She remained well until Feb of this year when her CA125 jumped to over 2000.  At that time she had some return of the ascites and all her scans came back clear- no visible tumor regrowth. She still felt great. She started on a clincal trial of avastin with taxotere. She receive 5 rounds of this treatment and she was feeling well but her CA 125 swelled to over 3000 and she was removed from the trial.  A week prior to that my mother got Pneumonia and Neutropenia. She was treated in the hospital for these and was released. We had her CA125 rechecked prior to starting a 2nd line of chemo and it had dropped over 1000 points, but she then developed c diff colitis-fecal tested positive) & was put on Flagyl. She has had one round of Doxil. Since then it has been downhill all the way and the ascites has roared back with a bang. She has had several more scans and they are still clear but the ascites had pushed into the plural cavity. She was drained on Monday 5 liters of fluid and the fluid is already coming back. The cat scans done on Tuesday and the results of that test according to her doctors show no signs of "stranding" and that the c diff colitis is no longer present in her body. She still has alot of pain on her left side & fatigue but was released home yesterday. We are waiting for the analysis of the fluid they took to see what that will tell us. She is due for another Doxil treatment on Tuesday.  Any suggestions, information, possible solutions, insights would be of great help and we would be forever grateful.  Thanks Tim

[JC145]

She should have a PET/CT .. it shows up the smaller tumors.  I didn't think you could have ascites without a tumor .. but I could be wrong.

How is she doing now?

Judy