My husband (60 years old) has RCC that also spread to his spine, rib, hip, lungs. He was diagnosed 3 1/2 years ago and has had the kidney removed, spine surgery and hip replacement. He has been on most of the newer treatments, including nexavar. They all seemed to work for a while. They took him off of the nexavar after about 9 months when he developed congestive heart failure. They did not want to try the sutent because it is very similar to nexavar. He went into home hospice at that point. The heart meds seemed to control the chf and he improved enough to come out of hospice and go on the torisel when it was approved last July. It seemed to be working. He was doing OK on it - not much side effects. The first CT showed a little shrinkage in the lung mets and the last one showed it to be stable. Since January the doc has him on a break from the torisel treatment. He has an oncology appt next week and probably will get scans again so see where he is at.
He also has major problems with neuropathy that started with the nexavar but has gotten much worse in the last 3 months. He cannot even lay down because his feet throb when he puts them up off the floor. He sleeps on the couch with his feet on the floor. He ended up with gangrene in the tip of one toe because he had such poor circulation in his legs. I don't know what has caused the blockage in his arteries. The doctors always love to blame all of his problems on the fact that he smoked. May be true but seems like an easy answer for them. I wonder if it was caused by the meds or the radiation he received in the pelvic area and back. Docs say "maybe" when I ask that question. Anyway, they finally did some circulation tests and last week he had an angioplasty to open the artery in his groin area. It seems to have helped a bit. They said there was also blockage in the artery going through his thigh that was too long to open with a stent. They just did more ultrasounds this week so I am hoping we will hear soon if there is something more they can do.