CancerCompass message board discussion started by blackboxthisdrug on 8/28/2007 http://www.cancercompass.com/message-board/message/all,15705,0.htm Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://backend.userland.com/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/ Has someone you know been diagnosed with cancer?  Have they been told that the pill form of Xeloda is what the treatment of choice will be?  Then you will most certainly want to continue reading this blog.In August of 2007, our mother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.  The cancer had spread to her liver and the initial diagnosis did not look promising at all.  But by the grace of God, the doctor's were able to remove all of the cancer from her colon as well as her liver.  The other wonderful news was that the cancer was not found in her lymph nodes. All of her follow-up tests showed that there was no cancer present.  The debate then became whether or not to do chemotherapy or not.  All of the protocols that are out there say chemotherapy of some sort is most certainly in order.  That being said our mother was placed on the low dose chemotherapy known as Xeloda.Once she started taking Xeloda, she experienced similar symptoms that most chemo patients encounter:  extreme nausea, diarrhea and dehydration.  Her extremely experienced oncologist tried to help comfort her by prescribing anti-nausea medications for her.  On November 25th of 2007, less than three months later, our mother was complaining of extreme abdominal pain and was taken to the emergency room.  The ER doctors ran the normal battery of tests to see what they could detect.  The lab results showed that our mother's lactic acid level was +12:  more than six times the normal amount.  The doctors immediately admitted our mother to the ICU so they could closely monitor her. They quickly discontinued all of the meds that she had been taking: including the Xeloda. Very shortly after she was admitted, she coded and was "down" for less that two minutes.  The doctors then continued to monitor her to see if they could figure out what caused her to code.  Every time they drew labs her acid level was higher.  It peaked at over 25.  After trying to get her off of sedation and getting no response the doctors ordered an EEG and found that she had no brain function.  The unbelievable high amount of acid had basically "fried" her brain.In order to confirm everyone's suspicions (all doctor's included) an autopsy was performed.  The results that came back showed that there were no signs of cancer or any other illness.  For all intensive purposes our mother was a healthy 54 year old women with lots of life ahead of her.  These results were formally written up by our mother's oncologist and submitted to Roche, the manufacturer of Xeloda.  Roche sent back a form letter stating that they have not had any other cases that have been reported of people dying from lactoacidosis.  In a strange twist of fate, a friend of ours had a close friend die the exact same way in a completely different state. We have had experienced doctors look both sets of medical records and they are exactly identical.  Both women had colon cancer, experienced nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration and ultimately extremely high acid levels that caused there deaths.We are looking for anyone who may have a similar situation with someone they know.  We have tried to get information from Roche pertaining to their research results with Xeloda and have been turned away.  Unfortunately, the second family whose mother died was unable to get a law suit filed within the one year timeline set by their state.  We need at least one other family to come forward so we can try and use a class action law suit to get Roche to share their research information. We are most certainly not in this for the money we just want some answers.  One family cannot go this alone.  Drug companies are powerful and would financially drain us if we tried to go it alone, which is why we are trying to locate anyone who may have a similar story.  If so please contact me at --Message edited by CancerCompass staff. For personal protection, email address removed. Consider private reply. Please review CancerCompass Member Guidelines at http://www.cancercompass.com/common/guidelines.html--   Because if this drug has negatively effected two totally unrelated families you know it is bound to effect more.  blackboxthisdrug Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT