On 4/2/2009
Mary Katie wrote:
I was diagnosed with BAC nearly two years ago. I have been feeling great but lately I find that I am coughing more often and have been coughing up phlem. My doctor wants me participate in a clinical trial (while my body and lungs are still strong) where patients are given chemo and tarceva but you are randomly selected for which you recieve first. In other words, I would be treated with one until I could not tolerate it or it didn't work, then they would switch me to the other.
In my research, I get the feeling that chemo is not too effective. I would appreciate information about people who have taken chemo and what the results were. Thank you.
My husband has mucinous BAC. His doctor says traditional chemo is not very effective on BAC because it is so slow growing. Tarceva does wonderful things for some people, especially Asian females.
My husband, diagnosed with Stage1IIB BAC, tried Tarceva alone in 2006 and he was stable for 6 months. After Tarceva, he did the traditional chemo that didn't touch it. After that he has been on 4 different clinical trials. You will find if you have to try different treatments that most Phase II and Phase III clinical trials will exclude you if you have had more than 2 different cancer treatments. Generally after 2 you only qualify for Phase 1 trials which are a real crap shoot. We are hoping my husband gets lucky and finds something that will help him. We keep on hoping!
My suggestion would be to take Tarceva if your insurance company pays for it and don't take the chance that you will get picked to have chemo first. Here are some wonderful websites that will help you with your decision. cancergrace.org Click here: GRACE and Click here: ACOR Home Page
Trudie