My husband, aka JohnKeats, passed away in April from metastatic prostate cancer. He was only 52. He survived 6 years beyond a stage 4 diagnosis, when he was given only 18 months. This was due in...
Thanks Jordan, He is not much of a fighter these days. I have to say that the "bad news" was told to him by a local onco who is not a specialist, but they are in touch with a PCa specialist at Dana...
First, I'd like to say hi. I haven't been on here for over a year. I'm still on PARP inhibitors which seem to be holding the bone mets at bay, but my prostate has been enlarging so they may have to...
My father was his oncologist and said, "My son's doctor is at the ASCO Conference in Chicago this week" and the doctor replied, "That's more than I want to know," and changed the subject. Since...
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread, both with forwarding resources, practical advice, and words of comfort. I've been going through all the info forwarded and feel a lot less...
Thanks Robert. The drug has worked wonders for me since April 2013. My PSA is starting to slip up (currently 25) but scans are still stable....
I also should mention that after nearly eight months on and off chemo, he's become very depressed and listless. He's lost his taste and can't enjoy food, so he's lost a lot of weight, and looks very...
I don't see Veliparib on the list....
This is a complicated one. My father has stage 4 PCa. Was diagnosed 2007, put on ADT (Lupron) for several years. Cancer went meta 2013 and is now spread all over. He has been on Zytgia (lasted two...
Thanks all for the encouraging info. Both my father and myself are going to Dana Farber on Thursday. I'll let everyone know about our experience there....
I just found out the harsh news that my father's prostate cancer has spread to his liver. Currently, he is on Taxotere after ten years on Lupron and three months on Zytiga. His cancer is spread to...
Speak of the devil: http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=36309.php ...
I've been on 16 cycles (12 months) of ABT-188, the PARP inhibitor that has been keeping the Beast at bay since May 1, 2013. Over the last couple of months my PSA has been "creeping up" as my clinical...
Long story short: I have metastatic castrate resistant PCa spread to my entire skeleton. I started one year ago this week on a PARP Inhibitor called Velaprib (ABT-188) which kills prostate cancer...
The word "cure" is problematic. Otherwise it would terrific if this could work with some people....
The event that led to my diagnosis was on 9/11/2011, the tenth anniversary of 9/11. My bones had been getting progressively worse for weeks, and that morning I went into the bathroom to do my...
To get the drug you have to go through genetic testing (a blood test) and then get into a clinical trial. I went through a BRCA research center at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia and they found me the...
As noted before, I'm in a clinical trial with a drug called ABT-188 (Veliparib) which is in a class of drugs called PARP Inhibitors. It's only relevant to men with Prostate Cancer who also have the...
Had my monthly scans and PSA. Seems like I'm holding steading. My PSA fluctuates from month to month but stays somewhere around 2.0. In short, I'm taking a PARP Inhibitor called ABT-888. It works on...
Hi Sara Marie, I do have good news. My PSA went down even further to 1.7. When I started the trial back in May, my PSA was 17. So it seems that the drug is holding, possibly even reducing, the...
Thanks guys. You're right, it was only a 1.2 fluctuation. I suppose I was more bothered by the PSA not going down, than the slight rise....
I've been on a clinical trial for PARP inhibitors for the past five months. When I started the trial, my PSA was 17 and last month it was somewhere around 2.2. Today it was 2.4. I know I may be...
I just saw all the responses! Thanks everyone. I'll read them all and response later. I did start reading a book! Unfortunately it wasn't a great work of literature, but a computer programming book...
A used book store near me is going out of business so I drove there with a metaphorical wheel barrow expecting to clean out half the store. I've been a prolific reader and have a large book...
Best of luck and hang in there, Todd. If my current clinical trial stops working, I may be joining you on Zytiga sooner than later. Richard (JohnKeats)...
MsWorryWart, my sister was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer about eight years ago and was tested positive for the BRCA2 gene. She immediately asked me to get tested as well, and of course I...
Good news. My PSA went down half a point in the past month. It's now roughly 2.2, down from 2.8 last month. My clinical trial using ABT-888 is only appropriate for men with the BRCA2 gene mutation....
Thanks guys. I was told the test for the gene was $3,000 and not covered by my insurance. But since I was part of the clinical trial, they covered it for me. The cost of the drug is covered by the...
Background: I spent a year and a half after diagnosis on Lupron and Casodex, hit my nadir at 0.69 then started progressing. Instead of starting Xtandi or Zytiga, went into a clinical trial with a...
Leeanglo, sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I'm not sure of any trials over in Europe but in Philadelphia here in the States, they opened a BRCA center which is where I got the referral to the...
I found this on the Info Link. http://prostatecancerinfolink.net/2013/06/19/parp-inhibition-tmprss2-epg-gene-fusion-and-veliparib-in-mcrpc/ They say here that the clinical trial is the first known...
Thanks everyone for such warm support. I hope next month my PSA is even lower. I have a troubling concern: If I'm on PARP for a while, will my cancer be gaining a resistance to hormone therapy during...
This is from the Wikipedia page on PARP inhibitors. It seems promising. Since the mutation may prevent conventional therapies like Zytiga or XTandi to work for me for very long, combining PARP and...
I did ask them about continuing the drug for compassionate use and they said they would have to petition the drug company, but it seems likely they would do it. The trial is for about a year. Sonny3,...
After one month on ABT-188 (PARP Inhibitor), my PSA has gone from 17 to 4.04! This makes me extremely hopeful and renews my optimism which I was starting to lose. Quick summary. ABT-188 is a drug...
This is great news! My deepest wish is that between newly approved drugs and clinical trials, we can all hang in there until the new generation of therapies come sweeping in on us....
I've been on Zometa for many months now and have had no side effects from it. It was XGeva that was giving me unacceptable bone pain....
Todd being stage 4 myself and having peaked at over 5,000 PSA I recognize many feelings in your post. I live every day not with the fear that the cancer may return, but with the knowledge that it is...
I was on XGeva for about seven months but it started causing bone pain. I switched to Aridia but it gave me fever chills. Now I'm on Zometa and I don't have any side effects at all from the 20 minute...
Thanks logoslidat for the passage from one of my favorite poems. WorriedWife, please let me know what therapy you choose. As bad as stage 4 is, there are MANY new options now that didn't exist or...
Thanks Irmaly. This is my first experience with a therapy failing and having to move on to a new one. For the record, this is a dose escalation trial with the endpoint being time to disease...
Thanks everyone for the warm thoughts and kind words. BRCA2 isn't a cancer mutation, but rather a gene mutation that results in the body's lessened ability to fight the growth of tumors. The therapy...
For those out there who may be interested in PARP inhibitors as a treatment for mPCa, I'll describe what I've been through in the last few weeks. Background: I have widespread PCa all over my bones,...
wessy, in time your wife will talk about it again. Maybe she just needs a temporary break....
Thanks for the info and support. I'm tending towards the PARP trial first, since one of my major problems is having the BRCA mutation. They believe this how I got the cancer in the first place. My...
I just wanted to give a quick update. The day I was going in to enroll in a clinical trial for PARP inhibitor's the Cancer Institute of New Jersey gives me a call and announces they found a trial...
This past week was the results of phase 1 clinical trials for BIND-014, a targeted chemotherapy/nano medicine that sounds very promising....
Please tell you Dad that I'm trying to send as many positive vibes as possible. He was one of the first to welcome me here and comfort me last year when I was in really bad shape and very confused....
I'm so new at this game, I don't know whether to get really excited about this or not, but it sounds like a promising next generation of immunotherapy. Deep inside though I'm "whoo-hooing!" all over...
I don't think I'll have to personally pay for the Zytiga. The insurance may cover it. My only point was that the clinical trial won't pay for it. If I get randomized to the Zytiga only, then I won't...