New Diagnosis

The liver tumor biopsy results are in from UCLA... and the pathology is acinar cell carcinoma--NOT pancreatoblastoma as originally assumed. Well, at least now we know why her cancer was not behaving like a typical "blastoma" cancer...

We talked to Dr. Sherri Spunt at St. Jude's today (before we had the biopsy results). When we brought up the idea that Dr. Marcio Malogolowkin brought up regarding blastoma vs. carcinoma, she responded quite the same way he did. She suggested trying some carcinoma targeting chemotherapy agents (i.e. Gemcitabane, vincristine, 5-fluorouracil) before looking into the phase I trials (using primarily irinotecan) at St. Jude's.

We are moving her primary oncology care from UCLA to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Marcio will be her primary oncologist. We have never felt more comfortable or confident in a doctor's abilities, except for Dr. Doug Farmer (Elizabeth's surgeon at UCLA) who is equally great. So, for now anyway, we are staying local for treatment. We are trying to facilitate a collaboration between Dr. Spunt and Dr. Marcio so that in the future, if need be, we can pursue further treatment at St. Jude's easily.

Hopefully we'll be starting a new chemo regimen later this week at Children's. I'm sure Elizabeth will want to pack her fairy wings so she can flitter up and down the hallways in the hospital before being hooked up to chemo (can't leave the room then).