Pleural effusion while on Tarceva - 1288607

ntebyanian
Posts:11

Hi,

My mom has EGFR + stage 4 lung cancer. She had a large effusion initially and got a pleurx catheter to drain at home. She was started on Tarceva and has been on it for about two months. Her pleural effusion has not been getting any less and in fact we are draining more now. Is this definitely progression of disease or could this be inflammation from the dying cells in the pleural space. She is otherwise better and has more appetite.

Thanks

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Reply # - September 12, 2016, 04:45 PM

catdander
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Hi and welcome to Grace. I'm very sorry to know about your mom's diagnosis. Having a pleural effusion continue is definitely not a definite sign that tarceva isn't working. It's possible she feels better because she is expelling the fluid through the catheter. I'm glad she is feeling better, a good sign indeed and hope she finds the cancer very much diminished. We have a series of short videos on the subject of PE and how they are managed. It may be that she just needs more time to reverse its cause.

The first of the videos is found in the following link. Others are linked to below the video. http://cancergrace.org/lung/2015/08/03/gcvl_lu-cc01_introduction_malign…

I hope this is helpful and I hope your mom does very well.

Janine

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