Tarceva progression and Chemo not effective, what next? - 1268859

angieb
Posts:12

My husband was diagnosed Stg IV NSCLC December 2013. Poorly defined adenocarcinoma posive EGFR. Progressed to adrenal gland, lymph node, shoulder, spine, hips. Tarceva was pretty rough at 150 but at 100 it was tolerable. Remarkable response on tarceva. Eight good months before progression. First to bones, then adrenal gland. Biospy showed T790 negatve. Started chemo Jan 2015. Stopped Tarceva two days before starting chemo. Carbo, Alitma, Avastan. Chemo side effects extremely harsh. And symptons continued to progress, with pain throughout the body. Scanned nine weeks after first treatment (three weeks from second). Dr advised chemo is not working. What other options are available? Was wondering if he went back on Tarceva if it might help for a few months until Tiger 3 trial starts.

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catdander
Posts:

Angie, I'm so sorry to hear about your husband's progression.

Dr. West has said at least a dozen times that if there's any hope that tarceva is helping then it can be continued. His metaphor being, "bad brakes are better than no brakes". I just Grace searched the term and came up with these results that I'm sure will help, http://cancergrace.org/search-results?q=bad%20brakes%20are%20better%20t…

The very best of luck for the Tiger 3 trial.

Janine