Olaparib

Finished 6 cycles of taxotere and carboplatin in Aug...PSA was 183 at the end....took several months off... because I was totally beat up by the taxotere/carbo and prior 17 cycles of folfox and folfuri for colon cancer. See my signature.

Anyway current PSA is 390 with numerous bone mets and my oncologist has suggested Olaparib.....I know a small number of guys here have tried it....looking for any feedback...side effects, how did it work ? I am starting on Tues.

Also any ideas? Xray of left hip shows suspected cancer in femur and ilium
MRI of lower spine shows activity in L4/L5 but also degenerative changes
Bone Scan shows mets in several ribs but nothing else
CT scan shows activity in T10 but nothing else of significance

None of my docs can explain why 4 different tests/scans with 4 different results.....all I know is I have lower back pain and hip pain....could be mets ? could just as well be degenerative changes. I am trying to make sense out of this.

As most of my many docs say I am an interesting case........not what you want !!

Hi Ziggy, that is strange about 4 scans showing different things, but knowing how imperfect scanning is, not surprising at all. With back and hip pain being so common, hard to tell. My dad has shoulder pain, and before I jump to conclusions, I remind myself that I know people without cancer who were moaning and crying because of the shoulder pain, it is so common and painful.

Olaparib works for BRCA1 and 2 mutations, we had men on this forum who were taking olaparib, but all had this mutation. Could be that it is being prescribed also for disease with no such mutation, I have no idea. Have you been tested?

As for other ideas, I have a feeling that because of all this new medication available, some doctors have forgotten about older medication used to treat PC: ketokonazole, estramustin, estradiol. Worth asking about it.

You have been through a lot, I hope that the new therapy comes with no side-effects so that you can recover some strength and stamina.

Don, can you tell me what you are using for muscle relaxer ?

S.L. my onc decided not to try and biopsy since my cancer tumors are widely scattered and not an easy "target". Howver, snce my sister had breast cancer and my grandmother of my father's side had ovarian cancer, he felt this was worth a try. Because, I've had a lot of chemo 23 cycles) and it pretty well beat me up we want to hold that for later.

Ziggymonster

Ziggy...I was using Olaparib just last month....I too sent my DNA test off to a lab and found out I was BRCA 2 as well. I had good results with the chemo Olaparib...went from a 1000 PSA to 300. Problem is it was throwing my blood way out of whack.....needed to get 2 bags of blood because I was so anemic....then 5 weeks later I went to the ER and found I was even more anemic and took 4 bags of blood...stayed in the hospital for 4 days that time.

I also have hip pain...because the cancer ate thru my femur and broke it at the hip....also have big time back pain as you do. I had a rod emplaced in my left leg thru the middle of the bone and that helped with the pain but the Ortho Doc told me it may never heal because of the cancer still in that area.

My Oncologist told me to go off the Olaparib for a month which I did....and it seems the Olaparib continued to work because my last PSA was 94. Today I see him again and will do bloodwork and see if I can go back on the drug or not. I diddnt really have this problem with taxotere which I took for a year. I had to get that red blood cell shot once in awhile but no transfusions. I'm thinking the reason my last PSA was 94 is because the PSA test was a few days after I took 4 bags of fresh blood.
Being severely anemic is no joke....I was spasming and having some sort of shaking attack....along with feeling very weak and unstable.

Post Edited (Casper319) : 11/17/2016 6:59:00 AM (GMT-7)