Hi all,

As part of my wife's Tx, the doctor asked us whether or not she would be interested in taking 3 larger doses in week 1,4 & 7 of Cisplatin rather than 7 smaller doses each week.

He said that there was some evidence to suggest that by administering higher doses have shown to improve prognosis (although inconclusive) but it comes with more difficult side affects to deal with afterwards.

Any ideas / suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

I read similar, about the weekly smaller doses being less toxic, but also read that the weekly doses has more long term side effects, compared to the larger dosed standard 3 bag treatment. To what extent, I do not recall, and hope to come across it again. Good luck.

While I have never seen a study that compares the 3 Big Bag method to the Weekly approach we have had numerous posters tell us that their side effects were not as severe with the weekly vs what we all know from experience with the more standard Big Bag method. I also am not aware of any study that compares the effectiveness of one over the other. My only concern is that her cancer is HPV- and therefore is harder to kill and more likely to recur than HPV+ SCC so I would be more inclined to go with the standard 3 Bag method with the assumption (not medically based knownledge) that the worst for us is likewise for the cancer.

Hi David,

Thanks for your advice.

It was quite amazing that none of the doctors here have actually checked for HPV16 despite numerous requests stating that the cancer is on the oral tongue, and the probability is very low that it would be HPV+

The pathology report after surgery has come out all clear but one of the frozen margin rates was only 2mm and hence they wanted to be safe and go ahead with chemo on top of the radiotherapy.

Will make sure to do a bit more digging up but it's a tough decision to make for my wife as she has gone through so much up till date..