Help - Necrosis causing cyst in Liver - treatment options? - 1259121

betty85
Posts:2

Dear Dr. West,

I’ve sought your advice before and always found your responses to be of great benefit – thank you.

My wife, dx in 2011 with stage 4 squamous NSCLC, has been doing rather well the last six months on a combination treatment of Tarceva and Navelbine. Unfortunately, she has recently been hospitalised with a liver infection (cyst) following her last chemo infusion. Her oncologist reported yesterday that she has also been found to have progression in her liver (Liver Met).

I know this is probably a dumb question, but what treatment options are available for combatting a cyst in the liver. My wife is being given antibiotics for this but it is taking time and I am interested to know if there are other options.

Regards,

Richard

Forums

catdander
Posts:

Hi Richard, I very sorry your wife has shown progression in the liver. There aren't dumb questions so no worries.
Options are of the systemic variety. Tarceva and taxotere, also gemcitabine, taxol, and navelbine are options.
This link is a blog post on the subject, http://cancergrace.org/lung/2010/10/04/lung-cancer-faq-2nd-line-nsclc-o…

Clinical trials are also a good option. For squamous the PD-1 and PD-L1 are promising. http://cancergrace.org/lung/2013/06/21/mpdl3280a-spigel-asco-2013-nsclc/
http://cancergrace.org/cancer-101/2011/11/13/an-insider%E2%80%99s-guide…

I hope this helps,
Janine

Dr West
Posts: 4735

I think that if there's an infection, antibiotics are the leading treatment, perhaps with consideration of having it drained by a surgeon or interventional radiologist. I'm sorry to say that questions about managing a cyst are really outside of what I do as an oncologist, so I'd need to rely on input from other specialists.

Sorry I can't help more.

Good luck.

-Dr. West