update.. not so good

[TammyL]

Well the good new first is My Husbang Greg's nsc tumor in his left lung has responded nicely to chemo w/ radiation. Not so good news is there are threee more Cm size spots on his right lung. They are small but the onc says they can't radiate becasse they are in separate places and it would cause too much damage. They hit him very hard with chemo and rdition but somehow newspots developed. It is very hard to understand how someone can go through so much treatment and have the primary area get better and have new devlopments.. They aren't quite sure what they can do now. The neew suggestion was a lesser grade chemos so the onc. said it didn't make sense. ALready did combo os cisplatin and etopiside x4. 7 weeks of radiation. I am very concerned that there is nothing they can do and they are small spots..3 small 1 cm spots..Anyone have similiar results?? Everywhere else is good accordibg to the ct scan. Greg went to the ER friday because of pain in his side. Prob from coughing.. they did another ct scan and they said the pain can be the cancer since it is on the side of his lung.. . we are going ot boston to see what they think can be done. I don't want to have him go through lots of treaments to no avail but obviously want to try to get rid of these tumors if at all possible... We have two young children 11&7 don't want them to lose their dad or worse watch him fade away... I am really scared

[SandraL]

Hi Tammy. I would be very scared as well. I had similar first line treatment to your husband. My lungs and lymph nodes were clear but then I developed spine mets. See my profile, I have been on several other chemos since then. And many here have gone from chemo to chemo. So the advice you are getting seems a bit strange. I am glad you are going elsewhere. I am confident that they will recommend another chemo drug and my fingers are crossed that a new treatment plan is successful for your husband.

Sandra

[recce101]

Tammy, sorry to hear the disappointing news. Do you know the specific cell type of NSCLC? Adenocarcinoma? Squamous? Other? Perhaps the cancer was actively mutating, and while the initial tumor responded well to the first line treatment, the somewhat different cells that were circulating in the blood were immune to that particular chemo and this allowed them to get established in the right lung. There should be plenty of other treatment options available.

Aloha,

Ned