19th October 2006
I will keep my fingers crossed that the Tarceva works as well for your dad as it did for my mom. My mom was stage IV NSCLC adenocarcinoma with liver mets. She deveopled a pleural effusion June 2004 which lead to further tests and in July 2004 we found out she had cancer she started with Carboplatin and Taxol the very next day. In December 2004 she started Iressa and was change to Tarceva in Jan 2005 as her doctor believed that it had a better chance of working. She did have a pneumonia and UTI at this same time so looked like death warmed over but within days of starting the antibiotics and Iressa she was so much better and just kept getting better and soon was saying she had not felt that good in years.
The Tarceva worked on her liver mets for awhile but then seemd to stop working on them so in Augist 2005 she was taken off it and put back on chemo, The great thing about the Tarceva was it totally did away with the actual lung tumor and her lungs remain cancer free and this is 15 months later! She is one of the few peole here that has not had to deal with all the lung issues like shortness of breath,coughing etc.
The sad part is the fact that her cancer had spread outside the chest to the liver before it was found and that the liver stopped responding to the Tarceva.Maybe if we had found it before it spread with the help of Tarceva she would be NED and living the good life still but now we are calling hospice.
Anyway when Tarceva works it can do some amazing work on the cancer and I feel in the not so far future drugs like Tarceva, avastin and hopefully HKI 272 ( still in clinical trials) will change the way lung cancer is treated and do away with the need for chemo. Maybe get to the point where they can cure it or if not at least manage it for years where the patient has a great quality of life. Lets hope this happens.
I will keep you dad in my prayers and ask God to allow him to see good results from Tarceva. JanMarie
The Tarceva worked on her liver mets for awhile but then seemd to stop working on them so in Augist 2005 she was taken off it and put back on chemo, The great thing about the Tarceva was it totally did away with the actual lung tumor and her lungs remain cancer free and this is 15 months later! She is one of the few peole here that has not had to deal with all the lung issues like shortness of breath,coughing etc.
The sad part is the fact that her cancer had spread outside the chest to the liver before it was found and that the liver stopped responding to the Tarceva.Maybe if we had found it before it spread with the help of Tarceva she would be NED and living the good life still but now we are calling hospice.
Anyway when Tarceva works it can do some amazing work on the cancer and I feel in the not so far future drugs like Tarceva, avastin and hopefully HKI 272 ( still in clinical trials) will change the way lung cancer is treated and do away with the need for chemo. Maybe get to the point where they can cure it or if not at least manage it for years where the patient has a great quality of life. Lets hope this happens.
I will keep you dad in my prayers and ask God to allow him to see good results from Tarceva. JanMarie