Thanks Suzanne,
His first Erbitux session went very well today. It was long, about 3 hours, but they do it very slowly the first time. The PET scan results were not so good. He doesn't have any distant mets, but the main cancer in the cheek is growing quickly (went from less than 1 cm. on April 9 to 5 cm. today). He also has active areas in the left neck and left trachea. There is a possibility that he may have a brain met. He will have an MRI soon.
We talked briefly about adding Carboplatin and Taxol to further sessions, but the Dr. said that the benefit would probably not outweigh the side effects, and would do more harm than good. So we will stick with palliative Erbitux for now. We also got Fentanyl patches to add to the pain meds. He is just so exhausted all of the time. I just hope he can withstand the treatment.
Will update again soon.
Lori


Lori, cg to H Ron, age 56.
Stage IV Oral SCC-T1N2. Tongue resected and right ND 8/05. Teeth removed, PORT, PEG, IMRT x33, Cisplatin x3. Tx ended 10/05.
Recurrence 7/08 Stage IV. Surgery 8/30/08.
2nd recur. 11/08. 2nd surgery 2/2/09.
3rd recur. 4/9/09. Erbitux wkly. 5/09-?
Ron died 6/6/09.
Lori also passed away 8/20/11, colon cancer