ol33
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My mother-in-law was just diagnosed with sarcomatoid carcinoma of lungs. We would like to get a second opinion. Any suggestions as to who is an authority or has experience with this condition/diagnosis? Thank you so much for all and any help. Seems like finding an expert for this condition is a bit more challenging...
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Reply # - July 30, 2017, 08:14 AM
Hi ol33,
Hi ol33,
Welcome to GRACE. I'm sorry to hear of your mother-in-law's diagnosis, and the difficulty she is having in locating an expert in this particular cancer. My best suggestion to find such an expert would be to look at publications listed on PubMed and looking to see who has published on this subject. You can start with these search results for "pulmonary AND sarcomatoid AND carcinoma": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=pulmonary+AND+sarcomatoid+AND… You can also try adding "AND Chicago" (or other location), but that will only return results for that specifically named place. An institution in suburban Chicago would not appear, nor would one within a reasonable driving distance.
Click on a publication in the list that contains those terms, then click on "author information" which appears below the name of the article and the names of the authors. The superscript after each author's name will be referenced in the information, so you can see the institution with which the author is affiliated. I'm afraid it's a bit of a time-consuming process, but as you say it can be difficult to find doctors who have experience in such an uncommon diagnosis.
Good luck.
JimC
Forum moderator
Reply # - July 30, 2017, 08:23 AM
ol33,
ol33,
You might also want to search for clinical trials at clinicaltrials.gov using the same search criteria.
We don't have an expert on this subject on GRACE, but Dr. West had this to say about treatment options (although is comments were in the context of maintenance, they would be relevant to any systemic treatment options for sarcomatoid carcinoma):
“I’m sorry that I think you’re very unlikely to have anyone here who can comment on what to expect for sarcomatoid histology, since it’s so rare. Aside from the promising results in a few patients with this histology who received immunotherapies like anti-PD1 agents, there’s really no specific information about it.
Taxol (paclitaxel) is not commonly used as a maintenance therapy, since it has no proven value after 4-6 cycles and definitely leads to cumulative neuropathy.
Avastin (bevacizumab) alone is sometimes used, and it is the more studied approach after carboplatin/taxol/Avastin as first line therapy.
The hesitation about Alimta (pemetrexed) is understandable, since it definitely has some specificity for non-squamous histology and may not have activity in sarcomatoid histology…that’s just not known.
Otherwise, Tarceva (erlotinib) and Taxotere (docetaxel) have each been studied as a maintenance therapy and have some evidence for potential benefit as well. That said, there’s no established best approach in this situation.” – http://cancergrace.org/topic/sarcomatoid-carcinoma-maintenance#post-125…
JimC
Forum moderator
Reply # - July 30, 2017, 11:44 PM
Dear JimC,
Dear JimC,
Thank you so much! It is very helpful. I was actually using this approach with the google search - with not much progress or result. I will definitely try PubMed.
Once again, thank you for this helpful pointer and all the best.
ol33