Well I hope that the patients in your RO's study who just get
Erbitux rather than a combo of
Erbitux and cisplatin/carboplatin fare better than I did as a
HPV+ patient. What's interesting about
Erbitux is that it was initially approved for colo rectal cancer and then they discovered that it just doesn't work on about 35% of patients with a version of the KRAS gene which interferes with the EGFR action of
Erbitux. In fact, assessment for EGFR expression and KRAS mutation is standard good medical practice for the use of cetuximab (
Erbitux) in Colorectal Cancer, but not required for use in Head & Neck Cancer.
There is increasing evidence to support the use of such biomarkers in predicting tumor response to treatment, as this allows therapeutic approaches to be tailored or personalized to individual patients and results in improved outcomes and survival. Unfortunately I haven't heard of anyone exploring screening head and neck cancer patients to see if
Erbitux would actually work on them. My RO mentioned not much drug company funding available on showing a major money maker doesn't work as well as they thought on over a third of patients.
Charm
