Friday, August 25, 2006

Protocol Change

The doctors want to change Heath’s protocol. They scan his tumor after each complete cycle of chemo and then compare that scan to the past scans. Then they review it all at there weekly tumor review board meetings.

The most recent scan showed that the part of the tumor that is in the bone is stable but the part of the tumor that is in the soft tissue is changing. They said not to worry too much because this is common but that it did warrant a change in protocol.

It goes without saying that we are worried but we are fortunate that they have the technology to see the changes so they can change the protocol accordingly.

They want to put Heath on a different chemo called Ifosfamide which is geared more towards soft tissue sarcomas. He will get two rounds of the Ifosfamide with a 2 week break in between. They also want to move the Proton Beam Radiation treatment up approximately one month. That should put us in Boston in the second week in October.

Dr. Agresta at Moffitt also sent the scans to Harvard so they can review them at their weekly tumor review board meeting.

Please pray for Heath and pray that this new protocol will shrink the soft tissue part of the tumor to nothing. Also pray for the doctors so they can make the correct decisions on Heath's treatment as well as all the other patients that they are treating.