I froze and I couldn't sleep when I read this article published just a few days ago: Avastin, Sutent increase breast cancer stem cells, study shows. The article says that "tumors treated with (Avastin and Sutent) developed more cancer stem cells, the
small number of cells within a tumor that fuel a cancer's growth and
spread and that are often resistant to standard treatment." So these drugs worked for awhile, then after a few years, bam! Hello cancer again?!?!
In my mom's case, THIS is our answer as to why my mom's breast cancer recurred. For countless days and nights, we dwelt on this question and blamed different things---lumpectomy vs. mastectomy, bad genes, food, my dad's smoking, inadequate dosage, etc etc etc. Maybe they contributed as well, but from this article, it appears that Avastin is largely to blame for the recurrence. And because Avastin always had the impression of being a grossly expensive "rock star drug" taken as an adjuvant therapy, it never occurred to me to blame Avastin. Not to mention that the side effects that my mom endured to take Avastin are no joke.
The next day, I mustered the courage to tell my mom about what I read. While I didn't want her to look back and regret on having taking Avastin, I felt it was best to tell her the truth rather than have her wonder and even blame herself. On a positive note, it's really good that my mom is responding well to the CMF treatment she is currently taking. She's on her last cycle, and I really pray that all the cancer cells would finally be killed and replaced with healthy cells.
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