Just a heads up on a recent OCF news article that supports my bias against Erbitux (it failed spectacularly to even slow down my cancer yet caused me more pain and bleeding and discomfort than the 95 GY of radiation I've had or the Carboplatin.) Apparently if you have HPV, your cancer does NOT overexpress EGFR as much as non HPV cancers. Since Erbitux only shuts down EGFR, it can end up just making radiaation dermatitis worse while leaving the cancer fine.
[quote]For example, HPV-positive cancers are driven by the expression of viral oncoproteins and are associated with lower epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) levels than are HPV-negative cancers.[17] This has potential implications with regard to cetuximab sensitivity in HPV-positive tumors. A retrospective study out of Memorial Sloan-Kettering recently suggested that HPV-positive patients treated with cetuximab plus radiation have worse outcomes than patients treated with cisplatin and radiation.[18] It is imperative that current and future studies address specific therapies for HPV-positive and HPV-negative cancers; such studies need to focus on tumor biology, treatment intensity, and curability, and they need to acknowledge the fact that patients with HPV-positive tumors tend to be young and otherwise healthy�with the result that failures in this setting can be catastrophic.[/quote]
BTW, failure of Erbitux leading to recurrence seems equally catastrophic to a patient who was old but otherwise healthy like myself.
Charm