Friday, November 08, 2013

I hope this works, I have been trying to make this new entry for an hour and it keeps giving me error messages.

Brigitt asked her OBGYN ONC a bunch of questions and we thought they should be here

QUESTIONS/ANSWERS
Q.  What is the likelihood that I'll get choriocarcinoma again with this pregnancy?
A.  Chorio would be the result of one of two situations:
   1. Recurrence from the original chorio. This is highly unlikely since recurrence did not happen within 24months of the original chorio. Likelihood of recurrence after 24 months is about 1/1000
   2. New chorio situation. In this case, the odds of getting chorio are the same as before (approximately 1/160,000)

Q. Have you had patients who had chorio after full term birth and then had another child?
A. Yes. They had normal pregnancies thereafter

Q. Is there any way to determine during pregnancy that chorio is present?
Do any special tests need to be done throughout pregnancy?

A. Risks of investigative procedures to determine chorio are not worth taking, especially with the low likelihood of recurrence (e.g. risk of X-rays on a pregnancy).

Q. What are symptoms of chorio during pregnancy?
A. Usually the symptoms of chorio manifest themselves when the chorio has spread (e.g. lungs, liver, brain). No special symptoms exist

Q. If a full term birth occurs, what is protocol for chorio checks? Is there preventative measures that will take place (e.g. methotrexate) after birth? How soon will HcG test identify chorio after birth?
A. If there is a history of chorio, your OBGYN can order a pathology of the placenta to ensure that there is no chorio present. Otherwise, a standard hcg test 4 weeks after delivery would be advised (hcg may still be present within 4 weeks after a normal birth)

Q. Does chorio metastatis occur during pregnancy or afterwards if chorio is suspected?
A. Tough to say.
Q. If chorio recurs, what is response/success rate if second round of EMACO is required?
A. Response/success rate of EMACO would be the same if it's a new chorio case. If the chorio is a result of a recurrence of the original chorio, EMACO's success rate will be reduced by 10%