I found this tonight as I was clearly procrastinating from studying for my final (at least this is medical!)
"in clinical practice it would appear reasonable to accept a confirmed (at least two samples) doubling of the CA-125 from a baseline value (with a minimum baseline at the upper limit of normal for the laboratory, usually 35 U/ml) as an indication of disease progression. Lesser degrees of change in the CA-125 value may indicate lack of response (so-called "stable disease") but should probably not be considered as actual disease progression in the absence of supporting data (e.g., new ascites, presence of a new mass on physical examination)."
also: "In addition, even when the same lab is used, a variation of up to 14% can occur in the same patient."
So blah blah- my CA125 needs to go up to at least 64-84 to be significant evidence of cancer progression. I'm way under that yay!
I also read that CA 125 levels can have a cut-off of up to 200 to be benign disease- levels >200 are almost always cancer. Ha to all those people who told me that my CA125 elevation of 412 wasn't much to worry about! It was hundreds over the limit!!!
Some lady on a blog had a pre-treatment level of almost 6,000!!!
Congrats on being done with chemo, that's a huge step!!!! and those CA-125 numbers, that sounds promising!!!!
ReplyDeleteSo about the radiation, yeah it's been pretty easy. I seriously have had little to no side affects. I suppose maybe a bit of fatigue, but my sleep patterns are so irregular as it is it makes it impossible to judge. I would say that my energy levels are down cause when I play ultimate I can't play as hard or as long as I used too. Other than that, no other problems for me. What it did to my skin is just make it super red, like a sun burn, but not painful at all. I'll be up on the 30th for a check up, maybe I'll come up early and we could get together or something?