SarahS, I am so sorry to hear about your husband. What a shock for you both.
We have a lot of information on the site about SCLC. We also have some wonderful GRACE members who are living rewarding lives despite their disease.
When you say “where do we start looking for the best treatment?”, do you mean in terms of geographical location? Or do you need advice on choosing a hospital/oncologist?
For an introduction to SCLC, you might like to look at this briefing by Dr Gadgeel. (You’ll need to scroll down to get to the section covering extensive SCLC):
http://cancergrace.org/lung/2010/08/07/treatment-of-small-cell-lung-cancer/
This post by Dr West may also reassure you that your husband is getting the treatments that most oncologists would use:
http://cancergrace.org/lung/2008/09/05/wird-ed-sclc/#more-1452
I am sorry this disease has entered your lives, but hope we can help. All best to you and your husband.

Hi Sarah,
Sorry to hear about your husbands diagnosis. There arent many of us who have SCLC and are non/ never smokers, and also very young. The only nice thing about my diagnosis was that people kept telling me how young I was! Your husband even more so.

Its not a very nice diagnosis to get, because there are few options for treatment. Cisplatin or carboplatin with etoposide is very standard and effective. It is the standard and in my understanding, most effective first line of treatment.

If your husband responds well to the chemo, he should push for Prophylactic Cranial Irradiation (PCI), which significantly reduces the chance of brain metastases. Brain radiation sounds a bit scary, but assuming your husband is well and responds to the chemo, then I think the rewards outweigh the risks.

The challenge with SCLC is that it responds very well to chemo (I found my cough went on the first day of chemo), but tends to come back. But you should take things one step at a time and not worry about that too much just yet.

I was diagnosed 2 years ago, and am still working full time (although I work from home, so its quite flexible). I have had very few side effects from chemo. I’m currently on my fourth line of treatment.

Most of what you read about SCLC is very depressing, so its best to be careful what you read, and keep it one step at a time. I think being young and a non-smoker mean that its easier to fight, but there’s no doubt that its a nasty disease….

I’m following up with Dr Weiss’s excellent guide to getting a second opinion:
http://cancergrace.org/cancer-101/2011/11/13/an-insider%E2%80%99s-guide-to-the-second-opinion/
Just to expand on his thoughts about why a second opinion might be worth having. As you probably know there are two main types of lung cancer, small cell and non-small cell (NSCLC). Recent research in NSCLC has focussed on developing drugs that can “target” particular cell mutations, of which the most common and best-known is called EGFR.
But this research has also taught us more about the incredible versatility of cancer – how it can change its nature in order to evolve and survive. We’ve actually seen examples of NSCLC changing into SCLC, as Dr Weiss mentions. And what he’s suggesting is that a thoughtful oncologist – and someone who spends a lot of time on research – might want to delve a bit deeper into your husband’s diagnosis, for example by testing to see if he has the EGFR mutation (this is done by biopsy). Such a specialist would also have a good idea of what clinical trials might be available and/or suitable for your husband.
Oh, and you’ll realise from her post that warriorprincess was one of the people I had in mind when I mentioned patients living well with SCLC! She is wise as well as resilient, and any advice from her is well worth taking. All best.