Adding Temador with Avastin when there is growth

    After 6 months of Avastin, Donnie's MRI showed small growth and swelling.  His tumor is in the frontal lobe, lying next to the motor cortex.  He is living with left side neglect, confusion and short term memory loss.

     He will begin Temador tonight for 5 days and off 23.  He has taken Temador 5 years ago when first diagnosed with diffuse astrcytoma.

     The neuro-oncologist feels that, since the Temador worked 5 years ago, it may help to keep his symptoms from worsening.  He's adding a small gun(temador) to help the elephant gun (Avastin).

     Has anyone had these meds prescribed this way?  I've asked the NO what we can expect, what this means in terms of success, but does not give me an answer.

Thank you all for being such a great support and resource for this disease.

Im sorry to hear about the regrowth.  I had regrowth in Jan of this year.  Since then I have been on Avastin and temador 140 mg but on a 21/28 day cycle.  Im supprised they are adding temador to the avastin after regrowth,  Usually once avstin stops working, its time to try something else.  The only side effect is fatigue and its not too bad

I think this is the "something else".  Originally, after the resection in March, they were going to put him on Temador.  He had radiation and Temador, 5 years ago with the grade II.  But, when they did another resection in April, it was decided they needed something more aggressive, thus the Avastin.

The NO said they would keep him on the Avastin and  420mg of Temador for 5/23 and reassess in a year.  Meanwhile, he will continue his MRIs every 2 months.

He had the first dose last night and was up most of the night with nausea, even with the Zofran.

I've never had Avastin, but I'm guessing the nausea is from the temozolomide.

What I found worked was, in addition to the Zofran, having an Ativan (lorazepam) just before falling asleep kept me asleep and stopped me waking up with a headache or nausea.

Nikos (GBM4)

My sister was on Temodar and Avastin, now just Avastin. She's having slow growth. They're keeping the Avastin on because it does slow the tumor down. They halted Temodar with the Avastin because they didn't think the Temodar was doing anything anymore. There's research showing the two work together when the patient's had neither before, but that's for GBM. Still, it's possible they may work together here. I hate when we get the feeling the docs are just making it up as they go along.

I think the temador is giving Donnie seizures.  A half hour after he takes it he starts having seizures for about 5 hours.  Then they subside to 2 per hour.  This has happened the 2nd and 3rd night he took them. The doctor ordered a Dilantin level but never called me back on Friday to advise me about discontinuing Temador.  Sooooo, I discontinued it myself.  He only had a few seizures that woke him and had a good night's sleep.  They have also become fewer and farther between. 

It seems to me, because of the seizures,  he will not be able to take the temador with the avastin.  I wonder what will be next.