My mother is 70 & diagnosed with Large B cell lymphoma in dec.09. She underwent chemo which caused congestive heart failure. and it is permanent. she is stage 4 aggress.She's getting chemo and radiation & has a new tumor on leg.Is the treatmnt worth it

More info: She had her first round of a different chemo three weeks ago and it supposed to cycle 1 week of chemo 3 weeks off for 6 months. They are doing radiation on her head and did a mapping of her head for pinpoint locations, daily for 3 weeks (she has 1 week left). She has tumors in her lymp system, lungs, liver, on her head and a new one was found two days ago on her leg. The treatment she is receiving is supposed to shrink the tumors and make them not grow. With her having had a week of treatment and getting a NEW tumor on her LEG, is that a sign it's not working? Her doctor told her not to worry about it, that he will just need to change the chemo?!? At this point i have no idea whether there is any hope or whether the doctor is just trying anything and everything. Is it worth continuing on? Her doctor won't give her a time line. He says "Only God knows each one of our time", which to me is a cop-out. Does anyone know realistically what her time looks like if it fails to work? I live an 8 hour drive away and trying to guess so I know how often to take time off, etc. is impossible.

KM--
While it's impossible to say from this vantage point, it sounds like her cancer is extremely aggressive, which suggests to me that 'shrinking' the tumors is only buying her time ... time that could be made worse with added chemo and radiation.

Also, the truth is that the oncologist has no idea how much time, and can't possibly begin to give you an idea. They don't know. No amount of experience can help them predict cancer's direction.

What concerns me is that your mother isn't being given any other options in dealing with this. I'm not making any suggestions or anything, I'm just saying that she should have been given options beyond aggressive chemo, especially since it sounds like she's getting treatment at a facility that may profit from chemo. If you want to make her doctor uncomfortable, ask him what his 'chemotherapy concession' is -- this is the mark-up that oncologists who administer chemotherapy in their offices or clinics charge your insurance company. In other words, they make money off dispensing chemo. This doesn't make them villains, it just makes them businessmen and women.

Has anyone discussed palliative care with her? or alternative treatments?

And is there any chance you can get her to the James Center at Ohio State for a second opinion? This is a National Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of the world's best.

Ross

I just wanted to give an update. My mother only had 2 round of the new chemo. After the first round she was hospitalized a few days and after the second she was hospitalized 11 days. My mother passed on December 25, 2010. She was hospitalized 5 days earlier and while being treated in the hospital by other doctors (her oncologist was on vacation that week till 12/28) we found out through testing the cancer was throughout her lungs and liver. Her sugar plumetted on and off each day due to the liver damage from cancer and her kidney's shut down. thankfully the doctor working at the hospital told my dad like it was- she has 3 - 4 more days. All of my siblings and I were able to get to my mother before she passed. That doctor was right on, she lived 3 1/2 days from then. I finally got fed up and had called to talk to the doctor on the Monday before xmas and was told he was on vacation till the 28th. That day is when my mother was hospitilized. I never talked to the doctor because she passed before he was back from vacation. All the chemo did was make her sick and make her last two month miserable. That was no way to spend the last few months, with false hope and added discomfort.

Thank you for returning and giving an update although I'm sorry that your mother has passed and that this is the update.

You wrote, "All the chemo did was make her sick and make her last two month miserable. That was no way to spend the last few months, with false hope and added discomfort."

I can't think of a more accurate statement of the state of late-stage modern anti-cancer treatment options. Unfortunately, one of every ten Medicare dollars is spent in the last 30 days of a person's life, and drug companies know this. And unfortunately many patients end up spending their last weeks or months enduring hideous side effects from chemo drugs meant to give her no more than a couple weeks or months or life. In this regard, we're tricked by the media, which is always hyping 'promising' cancer treatments, but in reality they generally only extend life a few months at most, and those months are spent in hospitals undergoing difficult treatments.

It's why palliative care options are slowly making their way into modern medicine, even though they should have been here decades ago.

Again, I'm very sorry for your loss.

Ross