A widower groping his way

The first thing I wanted to know when I learned that my wife got glioblastoma was how long she would live from the time of diagnosis. I guess this would be the case of most caregivers. Here are some of the information I gathered about life expectancy of GBM. 1) 13 months (Harrison's principles of internal medicine) Treated with dexamethasone alone following surgery, the mean survival of patients <65 years with glioblastoma is 7 to 9 months. Survival is prolonged to 11 to 13 months with radiation therapy. Focal brain irradiation is less toxic and is as effective as whole-brain radiation for primary glial tumors. Radiation is generally administered to the tumor mass, as defined by contrast enhancement on a CT or MRI scan, plus a 3- to 4-cm margin. A total dose of 5000 to 7000 cGy is administered in 25 to 35 equal fractions, 5 days per week. Chemotherapy is marginally effective and is often used as an adjuvant therapy following surgery and radiation therapy. * Based on this informa...

I am a 46 year old man living in Seoul, Korea. My name is Sunny Lee. My wife was diagnosed as having Glioblastoma (GBM), one of the deadliest brain tumors, in late May 2009. Doctors told me, at different times in the last two years, that she would have only a few months or a few weeks to live . Now 2 years have passed since the diagnosis and she is still alive although her condition is not as good as I want it to be. 61.1 percent of GBM patients survive for one year with the standard care that includes surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. And only 20 percent of GBM patients survive for two years based on the standard care. This means that my wife is now in the small group of patients (12.4%) who survive more than 2 years. What’s noteworthy is that my wife failed to have a surgery due to the location of the tumor which was too deep inside the brain and only had a biopsy. She completed radiation on August 13, 2009 and chemotherapy on September 22 of the same year. She was supposed ...