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114870 tn?1210298346

Chemo or Clinical trial

Dr.  Goodman,  My Mom is  having a first recurrence 9 months after (carbo/taxotere) and her doctor  is  recommending  a clinical  trial  for a monocular antibody called MOBAR.  Its a study designed for women that have a rise  in ca-125 and with a clear CT scan and are not  symptomatic.  He says shes a good candidate for that.  Although her CT scan revealed an enlarged iliac chain lymph nodes 1x1.4 which is still in normal range.  CA-125 slowly rising every few weeks.  He says the recurrence is not aggressive.  The clinical  trial is meant to reduce the ca-125 for non symptomatic women and delay recurrence.  Her current ca-125 is 26 as of last week, up by 7 within 3 weeks.  His 2nd recommendation is back on carbo/taxotere.  We are a little lost and not sure what to do.  Im afraid if we dont get back onto chemo the cancer might progress if the clinical trial will not do anything for her.  What would you recommend?
Another question I have is lets say if she does do carbo/taxotere and then she developes another recurrence in 9 months will carbo/taxotere not be an option for her again?  Will it make her platinum resistant?  Or your only platinum resistant if it comes back within 6 months no matter how many times you've taken the drugs in the past?  Im asking because I want to know if we should reserve the platinum drugs for later and go with the clinical trial first.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thank you
-Fiana
2 Responses
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Avatar universal
Hi There
thank you for the additional information. Clinical trials look at new drugs and new drug combinations which we do not know are helpful or not. It is an opportunity to try something new that has a different mechanism for killing cancer cells. It is reasonable to consider it. There are also many other conventional chemotherapy drugs to consider including repeating the previously used therapy, or trying new drugs such as doxil and gemzar (and many others)

She could consider the clinical trial if after a few months the cancer is still growing, she could change to conventional chemotherapy.

I know these are tough decisions. There are no wrong answers
best wishes to you.

AKG
Helpful - 0
114870 tn?1210298346
Also the clinical trial is  for 9 weeks and once a week.

Im sorry I spelled  it wrong but this is the info on it from www.cancer.gov

Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine if an investigational drug called MORAb-003 is useful by itself or when used with other approved cancer drugs in treating women with ovarian cancer. MORAb-003 is a monoclonal antibody directed against an antigen on most ovarian cancers.

Further Study Information

MORAb-003 is a monoclonal antibody that has the potential to be an effective agent against epithelial ovarian cancer (including primary fallopian tube and peritoneal adenocarcinoma) either alone or in combination with other drugs. MORAb-003 works by a different mechanism from other cancer therapeutics and has been shown to be well tolerated. This study allows the opportunity to determine if MORAb-003 can work either as a single agent

a) to treat a CA125-only relapse, or

b) in combination with standard platinum and taxane chemotherapy to treat a symptomatic relapse, and

c) to prolong a second response to chemotherapy.

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