Diane Stern's Page

About Me:

My 21 year old daughter was diagnosed with GCT in July 2008. She has undergone surgery and cyberknife. Nothing seemed to work--until Denosumab. She is now ambulatory and returned to Washington, DC in May and is working full time. Although she still has pain and nausea, she is back to living a somewhat normal life for a 22 year old. Her follow up MRIs and CT scans have shown slight decrease in size of the tumor. Denosumab certainly seems to be the miracle cure we were all praying for.

How do GCTs affect you?

Family member of GCT patient

Location of primary tumor:

sacrum

Date of diagnosis of primary tumor:

July 2008

Treatment of primary tumor:

Surgery to remove the tumor and rebuild the pelvis. Unfortunately, two months later, the tumor was back.

Facility treated at for primary tumor:

Sinai Hospital Baltimore, MD

Would you recommend this facility and it's Doctors to another GCT patient?

yes

Recurrence? If so, where?

yes. sacrum

Date of recurrence:

November 2008

Treatment of recurrence:

First we tried cyberknife, but it wasn't successful. She has been receiving denosumab injections since January and, so far, the results have been pretty remarkable. She has cut down considerably on her pain meds and is back to a "normal" life.

Facility treated at for recurrence:

Sinai Hospital Baltimore, MD and Pennsylvania Hospital for denosumab

Would you recommend this facility and it's Doctors to other GCT patients?

yes

Metastasis? If so, where?

3 very small spots were found on the lungs

Date of metastasis discovery:

January 2009

Treatment of metastasis:

Hopefully the denosumab will work on this too. Right now, they're just monitoring them.

Tumor free?

no

Current GCT Status:

active