what is considered remission?

[DAWN82]

Hello everyone, one question came to my mind before,....
what is considered remission?? i try and look it up, but i dont get real answers. Brian is almost 3 months post chemo, and his markers have been normal (knock on wood). is that part of a remission? and i know how everyone says that the recurrence rate decreases after a certain amount of months? does this mean that Brian is on his way to having a less chance of recurrance? does anyone know????

Dawn

[ebfun7]

Remission

We have been told by Dr. Einhorn that remission beings when the makers normalize for non seminoma. When they normalize the chance of reoccurence is about 15%. Every two months they stay normal that percent decreases until about 3-5% chance of reoccurence one year out. At the middle of the second year out we were told the reoccurence rate is about 2%. We were also told once my husband hits two fulls years out ( two years from when his markers normalized) the chance of reoccurence is less than 1%. This was followed by Dr. Einhorn saying he has never seen a non-seminoma patient have a a non-seminoma reocurrence after two years out. Hope this helps.

Erin

[mercyriver]

I wonder what Dr. Einhorn's take is then when tumor markers were never elevated and then there is a reaccurance. Or maybe that is covered in the 15%?

And here is the definition of remission off of National Cancer Institute

remission

A decrease in or disappearance of signs and symptoms of cancer. In partial remission, some, but not all, signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared. In complete remission, all signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared, although cancer still may be in the body.


So based off of that any time the cancer isn't getting worse or staying the same, you would be in remission.


Becki

[Already Bald]

Wow Dawn- I just had this conversation with two other cancer survivors at work today! Both women- one had breast cancer and the other ovarian. We are a pretty close trio.
Our oncologists all gave us a different answer- go figure right?

I remember my oncologist saying two years out from my first all clear is a big milestone.

The remission defination question has been raised here before.

[Lori]

We were told basically the same thing from Dr. Einhorn that Erin mentions in a previous post. Jon's HCG was first normal after his first round of HDC. Although he went through another round of HDC and two surgeries, Dr. E considers Jon's yearly milestones from when the HCG was normal; although we do have another yearly marker for the teratoma.