Looking for suggestions

[Priyamvada91]

In the last two months, the cancer had spread to his liver and transformed to neuroendocrine. We have done two rounds of cisplatin + etoposide. But my father is unable to walk or do his basics and it feels like it's getting tougher for him. His potassium and albumin levels are also pretty low. Is there anything we can do to help with this situation ? He's particularly unhappy about his inability to do this basics. Any suggestions/ similar experience sharing would be helpful. 🙏

[SeosamhM]

Hello, Priyamvada91. I do not yet have neuroendocrine PCa, but since it may yet be in my disease experience (about 25% of us will encounter this mutation)and have a working understanding, I will weigh in.

For the time being, ignore the disease and research the effects of the chemo - both cisplatin and etoposide are widely used broad spectrum treatments For example, this paper indicates that cisplatin has negative effects on the kidneys in the presence of a high-fat diet:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

The authors are quite practical, stating that "... that control of calorie intake, even for a short period, could be considered (to be a way to avoid kidney injury), which is inevitable in clinical settings such as cisplatin‐chemotherapy, transplantation, cardiac bypass surgery, and so on."

Also, they found that "(f)asting for 40 h also significantly reduced the cisplatin‐induced changes mentioned above (i.e., cellular dysfunction)..."

There are diet experts on this forum, and hopefully they can also chime in, but I would suggest seeking out an appropriate diet change to help manage your father's side effects. Good luck!

[Priyamvada91 in reply to SeosamhM]

Thanks so much. This is also new information. Would love to hear more on this

[SeosamhM in reply to Priyamvada91]

You may have to experiment, as there is no "one size fits all" - just guidelines. This may be a start:

stanfordhealthcare.org/medi...

[TomMaloney]

Contact Himisha Beltran at Dana-Farber in Boston. She is world leading expert on endocrine prostate cancer. 617-632-3466 X2 or X8