The NLMSF.org symposium “Tackling Leiomyosarcoma: A Team Approach” was brief and to the point, held in Columbus, Ohio, during September. Here Floor Backes, MD, at The James, talks about ULMS. Thank you, Annie Achee and Mitch Achee, and all who made this program possible!
Joel Mayerson, MD, spoke about a surgical perspective on LMS of the limbs. Here he identifies the differences between benign and malignant tumors.
And here is another informative slide:
You now can find about 200 informative and inspirational blog posts on http://thriversoup.com/blog, in addition to more than 250 healing solutions in the book Thriver Soup.
A new weekly blog for those who have lost a loved one to addiction will begin in January in preparation for my upcoming book, Grieving an Addict. A cancer patient who became opioid-dependent will appear among the first blogs, so at times the cancer theme will still run through these new blogs.
This means your Thriver Soup blogs will now arrive on an occasional Thursday basis.
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Because of the epidemic nature and social stigma of the disease of addiction, there might be people in your life for whom this resource could prove invaluable. Please share this new blog.
As a thank-you, you will receive a checklist of “7 Ways to Cope with Loss,” which can assist with any bereavement experience.
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I’m excited to share with you that Thriver Soup has been included in a Reader’s Digest feature!
Other upcoming Thriver Soup interviews will include HerStory and Brain Hackers. I will share them through this blog.
In the meantime, the new free oncology counseling support helpline in the United States is 888-264-4670, a collaborative effort by the National Leiomyosarcoma Foundation and Cancer Support Community.
From now until mid-October, as I let go of blogging weekly and take a break, I also will be taking a digital vacation, so I won’t be online much.
Immunotherapy as a cancer treatment was addressed briefly Oct. 8 at the National Leiomyosarcoma Foundation patient symposium in St. Louis, Mo. This was one of several cancer treatment topics that I am reporting about during the coming weeks.
Dr. Mohammed Milhelm, Holden Chair of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Iowa, said “Sarcoma doctors aren’t happy with the current treatments available. I’m trying to move immunotherapy into sarcoma treatment.”
Historically, immunotherapy is used to stimulate the immune system, yet if our immune systems are always accelerated, we would not live. “We have a good brake system in our bodies,” he said.
Immunotherapy is using the body to target the tumors. “A lot of people are thinking about immunotherapy in combination with other treatments,” he said. “We are still trying to understand how the immune system works. It’s tricky and complicated.”
A lot of questions are coming up about how to do immunotherapy. Sometimes imaging months after treatment ends might show significant improvements. Combining immunotherapy with radiation might help the immune drug work better.
Newer, more powerful drugs are on the horizon. “We’re learning a lot from the melanoma world and trying to transfer it to other cancers. There haven’t been enough immunotherapy treatments with LMS to know if it is effective.”
Swelling can be a big problem, especially in the bones and the brain, and is a concern researchers still don’t know how to address.
There is a lot of promise right now, but researchers don’t yet know how to translate it into treatments for LMS.