Survivorship

Hi All - 

My wife is experiencing a second time brain tumor recurrence. She had her first occipital craniotomy back in 2011. On late Oct 2013 she began to experience different vision artifacts and visual migraines but with no pain. Radiation oncologist had a hard time differentiating between radiation necrosis or cancer recurrence. In 2015 the visual migraines began to come with headaches and the headaches later became intolerable. Finally, on Dec 12, 2015 a second occipital craniotomy was performed. Among the massive necrotic tissues, the surgeon found viable cancer cells.

My wife was on Tarceva for over 6 1/2 years. Then she developed acquired resistance to Tarceva with prevascular and supraclevical lymph nodes enlargement. Gene sequence on the biopsy of the large prevascula node revealed negative to T790M, PD-1 and PD-L1. Because the speed of which the lymph nodes are increasing in size she was quickly given 6 cycles of Carboplatin/Alimta. The cancer responded to the chemo exceedingly well. 7/24/2018 CAT scan of her body shown both lymph nodes reduced to negligible normal size. She was put on Alimta maintenance every 3 weeks.

My wife has come a long way with Stage IV lung cancer since 2010. She has now developed acquired resistance to Tarceva.

Gene sequence of biopsy from enlarged pre-vascular and supraclavicular lymph nodes revealed mutation remains EGFR L858R in EXON 21 (original mutation from 2011) and negative to T790M. The cancer is also PD-1 and PD-L1 negative.

March 20, 2018 at 2:04 pm #1294118
JimC Forum Moderator
JimC Forum Moderator
If you’d like to stay informed about the latest GRACE developments, you can subscribe to our free GRACE Notes newsletter. Just fill in the form here and never miss another update!