when do symptoms of terminal cancer start to show?
My friend is a 27 yr old single parent who was diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer. She was given a year about 5-6 months ago but is showing no sign of illness. She has maintained her weight, if not gained. Her skin and eyes are still bright and energetic. She seems happy and healthy by all accounts. What type of symptoms should we expect to see as her illness progresses and when should we expect to start seeing them?
"global trotter" has a good answer except we would not expect night sweats with this type of malignancy – assuming this really is an ovarian carcinoma.
Your friend is extremely young for an ovarian carcinoma.
How sure are you of the diagnosis?
Has she been on combination chemotherapy for these last 5-6 months?
I can’t believe they would give up on a 27 year old woman without trying all of the different chemotherapy regimens we have for ovarian carcinomas.
Where is the metastatic disease?
Liver? Lungs? Intraperitonal? Retroperitoneal lymph nodes?
If she does not have liver involvement, we would not expect to see the jaundice and liver failure that "globe trotter" describes.
What you describe is a person still in good health without weight loss and not appearing sick. It sure would help if we knew where her metastatic (stage IV) ovarian cancer is located. She must have had CT scans of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis.
And it would help to know what treatment she has received.
Did she have optimal debulking surgery? What chemotherapy has been tried?
By the way, doctors do not "give" people set amounts of time to live.
I know what you mean, but that phrase always bothers me – as if doctors decided the fates of patients. When doctors are pushed to make predictions, we are usually wrong. No one knows the future for any one person. We only provided statistics based on many other people who have had similar situations. Yet each patient is different.
It does not sound like she is within 6 months of death from the description you provide.
If she allows it, you might go with her when she sees her medical oncologist. That way you can hear what is really going on from a medical professional who knows all the details of her case details we do not have here.
From http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/255771-overview
Ovarian carcinomas are uncommon in patients younger than 40 years.
Most cases are diagnosed in the 60 to 70 age group.
Filed under: What is Cancer
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Weight loss, anorexia, fatigue will be the first 3 common symptoms and then jaundice in skin and eyes, pain, nausea, enlarged lymph nodes( cancer is spreading), excessive sweating (night sweating), difficulty in breathing are terminal symptoms in general.
She is very young…sorry. I believe your friend is a courageous lady by maintaining a positive attitude against the odds. Statistically, stage 4 ovarian cancer has a poor survival rate, but who knows she might prove the statistics wrong and might survive much longer.
References :
Med field, and cancer survivor
"global trotter" has a good answer except we would not expect night sweats with this type of malignancy – assuming this really is an ovarian carcinoma.
Your friend is extremely young for an ovarian carcinoma.
How sure are you of the diagnosis?
Has she been on combination chemotherapy for these last 5-6 months?
I can’t believe they would give up on a 27 year old woman without trying all of the different chemotherapy regimens we have for ovarian carcinomas.
Where is the metastatic disease?
Liver? Lungs? Intraperitonal? Retroperitoneal lymph nodes?
If she does not have liver involvement, we would not expect to see the jaundice and liver failure that "globe trotter" describes.
What you describe is a person still in good health without weight loss and not appearing sick. It sure would help if we knew where her metastatic (stage IV) ovarian cancer is located. She must have had CT scans of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis.
And it would help to know what treatment she has received.
Did she have optimal debulking surgery? What chemotherapy has been tried?
By the way, doctors do not "give" people set amounts of time to live.
I know what you mean, but that phrase always bothers me – as if doctors decided the fates of patients. When doctors are pushed to make predictions, we are usually wrong. No one knows the future for any one person. We only provided statistics based on many other people who have had similar situations. Yet each patient is different.
It does not sound like she is within 6 months of death from the description you provide.
If she allows it, you might go with her when she sees her medical oncologist. That way you can hear what is really going on from a medical professional who knows all the details of her case details we do not have here.
From http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/255771-overview
Ovarian carcinomas are uncommon in patients younger than 40 years.
Most cases are diagnosed in the 60 to 70 age group.
References :
MD medical oncologist – 20 years experience with ovarian cancer patients – I never saw one this young.