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LDH – never high until now
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LDH – never high until now

› Forums › General Melanoma Community › LDH – never high until now

  • Post
    • October 23, 2017 at 12:40 am
    Jahendry12
    Participant

      I have read that stage iv patients with evated LDH levels have the worst prognosis. My husbands LDH level has been normal for the first 5 years at stage iv. His level has recently shot up due to disease progression. Do high levels for any length of time still indicate poor prognosis?

      Thank you. 

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    • Replies
        • October 23, 2017 at 1:14 am
        MovingOn
        Participant

          LDH is an indicator but not a diagnostic. It helps doctors point toward cancel as a possible diagnosis but by itself a high LDH can be caused by a lot of non-cancerous reasons. My LDH has been as high as 380 when I had only 1 positive lymph node and as low as 149 when I had two separate instances of melanoma progressing. LDH sort of measures the amount of dead cells in the blood. Therefore if a high metabolism situation like cancer exists then LDH would be high (rapid cell growth and rapid cell death in the tumor). But a lot of other things can elevate LDH (e.g. exercise).

          My advise would be to use the increased LDH level as a starting point for a new discussion with your Melanoma Specialist / Oncologist. Ask them to explain LDH to you and then ask them “with this new information should we be considering new/additional treatment options?” 

          I hope this is helpful and I am sure others can provide their experiences with LDH levels as well.

            • October 24, 2017 at 1:35 am
            TexMelanomex
            Participant

              I agree with Movingon. My most recent was 481 up from 430 in July. The interesting part is that I feel better right now than I did in July and I am exercising a lot more. There are lots of reasons for LDH changes tissue damage, inflamation, kidney issues, liver issues, excessive Vitamin C intake, high blood platelet counts, etc. I also agree that it should be a topic of conversation with your Oncologist to see what they think. On the labs I most recently completed it lists the reference range for LDH at 313-618 u/l …I'm not sure if thats the "normal range" for melanoma patients but it is a much higher than any other reference ranges I've seen.

            • October 24, 2017 at 4:15 pm
            Jahendry12
            Participant

              Thank you both very much for your replies.  They  helped!

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