If you choose the Erbitux route make sure to get the Qiagen test, which is intended to weed out the 40 percent of colorectal cancer patients who have a Kras gene mutation that makes them unresponsive to Erbitux. Little known fact that is often overlooked is that around 5% of head and neck cancer patients have this same issue and our regulatory community feels that this percentage is too low to be an issue...of course it sucks for the 5% who go through the side effects for nothing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22281752

Excerpt:K-RAS mutations, occurring in about 40% of colorectal cancers and associated with lack of benefit from epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antibodies in this disease, are found in <5% of SCCHN patients, making routine testing for K-RAS mutations unwarranted at this time.