Clinicals

My partner was diagnosed in May '07.  It was inoperable because it had wrapped itself around the main artery of his intestines.  We tried radiation, chemo and now the chemo has stopped working so we're looking at clinicals.  The cancer has spread to the liver and while he's reasonably healthy at the moment considering everything, I fear the cancer is going to start spreading quickly.

What are people's experiences with clinicals?

I imagine they can be very frustrating.   

Most definitely contact Pancan. They have a huge database and will do the searching for you.

My husband did a clinical trial and it was not frustrating at all. Also our dear friend did a clinical trial and, given a time frame of 3-6 months for advanced ovarian cancer, she lived for 8 and a half years. Her clinical trial meds are now available as a treatment! 

My mother was in a stage 2 clinical trial of Erbitux & Ixabepilone. This was prior to Oct 2007 when Ixabepilone was approved for late stage breast cancer. It is now called "Ixempra".

She had the whipple in 2005, and was cancer free for awhile. Unfortunately surgery wasn't an option.

I have great warm fuzzies for the Erbitux/Ixabepilone combo. My mother's CA 19-9 levels went from 19,000 to 2,842. In less then 3 months!!  Almost a 90% decrease. Something I quite honestly hadn't expected would happen. She developed an abcess on her liver and missed too many weeks of the study to continue. I'm desperately trying to get her insurance to approve the Ixempra as a treatment, (since it's now FDA approved, just not yet for Pancreatic Cancer)..

The Erbitux/Ixabepilone combo was explained to me as a combination of drugs that prevent the "seeding" and "growth".  Ixebepilone ie "Ixempra" is a fairly new class of drugs, called Epothilone B.

The study was conducted by Bristol Meyers Squibb. Stage 2 was set to run through November 2007; so by now I would expect it to be a Stage III trial.

Hope this helps. Good luck to you.