Silver Threads and Golden Needles

Yet more on my cancer, which seems to be pre-occupying me somewhat. There's a cure. I am absolutely livid that no one has pointed this out to me before or offered me the chance to pursue it, but there is a cure.
Typically with neuroendocrine pancreatic tumours, octreotide is prescribed to control spread (meta-static disease). This can be measured because the tumour is functional, that is it takes up the octreotide. This treatment even reduces the spread of the tumour in 6% of cases: very successful in this field. Interferon is also used, either in alpha or beta form. It appears that it's rarer to prescribe this, as it has some side-effects and shows no more benefit than octreotide, but if the tumour is non-functional (like mine) and won't take up octreotide, this is an alternative for controlling (though not curing) metastatic disease.
But I've now discovered that if you combine interferon with somatostatin, there's a much better rate of progression according to this Swedish study. Seven of eight patients involved in the trial benefited from this combination of drugs with partial response or stabilization. A previous study had also shown how even non-functional tumours benefited with a 50% response that lasted for nine months.
There are multiple side effects and it would probably mean three injections a day without any guarantee that it'd work or how long you might be injecting yourself. But with new methods to measure spread this is an option that I will certainly raise with my oncologist, rather than just waiting for the inevitable.