Hello All,

My brother finised 2 chemos and 10 radiations and he went to hospital yesterday to get the 3rd chemo. The Medical Oncologist told us to finish the radiation first (All 30) then he will plan the remaining four chemos (plan is 6 chemos total)

Treatment details are at :
http://www.oralcancerfoundation.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/2/t/000644.html

I called up the Doc yesterday to find out why, and he said my bother has severe mucositis and he would like to wait until my brother completes his radiation. My brother is compaling about some kind of sores in his mouth that are causing sever pain (mucositis i think). They are giving him some medication to take care of them

I am scared now. Will this effect his cure?

I though mucositis is a side effect of radiation, but looks like it is a chemo effect.

Please advice.

Praveen

Mucocitus is a side effect of both radiation therapy and chemotherapy for head and neck cancer. It is not unusual for oncologist's to suspend chemotherapy during radiation and should not effect your brothers remission.
Darrell

Hi Praveen,

When John started his treatment the medical oncologist (MO) said he was recommending 3 doses of chemo -once every 3 weeks concurrent with radiation- but that we should be prepared for the possibility that he would not be well enough in some way to have the third dose.

The MO told us that just over half of people with head/neck cancer aren't well enough to be given the third dose and that there is some research that indicates there is not a big difference in outcome between 2 and 3 doses.

There seem to many different approaches to treatment but that was what we were told.

Mary

Mary is correct and I too had my chemo shortened by one. I am a 3+ year survivor.

Thank you all for your responses.

I just spoke to MO and he said two rounds of chemo is kind of standard in this type of patients and he is confident that the two my brother took should clear eveything. The MO wants to complete the radiation because it is the most imp thing at this point and chemo is multiplying the mucositis which he suspended for now.

My brother is tolerating radiation well and they gave him some medication which seems to be working fine for the mucositis. He is planning on completeing the remaining radiations.

The MO studided my brothers file one more time for me and said he is responding very well to the treatment and he thinks everything should be OK.

After reading your responses and talking to MO, now I am not scared and hoping for the best.

Thanks you all once again,
Praveen

Radiation HAS to be completed - chemo doesn't. Radiation is the primary treatment modality. the ct is merely an adjunct.

Hello All,

My brother was able to finish his 30 radiations with a great deal of pain. He finished his radiations a month ago and the last one month he suffered a lot because of the side effects (severe mucositis). Last week he went back to the hospital and the MO gave him his 3rd round of chemo as follows

Day 1 : Cisplatin 50mg / Docetaxel 80mg and 20 mg / grafeel 300mg
Day 2 : Cisplatin 50mg / grafeel 300mg
Day 3,4,5 : grafeel 300mg

Now he is not doing well, and this is the worst time for him during this whole treatment (in the last 5 months). The MO wants to finish remaining 3 chemos and my brother does not want to go through the pain again.

I am reading some posts on this website where chemo was stopped intermittently and some people are saying with out radiation, chemo is not that useful.

Does it affect the out come at this point if he does not take the remaining 3 chemos?

Should I ask the doc to change the medicine or change the combinations? I read some where on the form where people are saying the side effects of Docetaxel are horrible?

When do they actually do the next scan to figure out how effective the treatment was and what needs to be done?

Looks like my brothers treatment took longer than most of the others because of the side effects. By god's grace he will be ok after all this pain and suffering.

Praveen

Praveen,

Although your brother's treatment was/is different than my husband's, I do know that a couple of weeks post treatment John felt even worse than he had during treatment. Not sure if everything was just built up in his system but his mucous problems, body aches and heavy fatigue came on really strong at that point. It was alarming, but as many people on this site have experienced, it did eventually pass.

Hope not too much time passes before your brother is finished with treatment and its strong side effects began to diminish.

all the best
Mary

Praveen,

My chemo was delayed until I was a month into radiation, due to what was (ultimately) a false positive on a PETscan. I was to have 6 weeks of radiation concurrent with 6 weeks of chemo. Instead, I got one chemo treatment a month after I started radiation. I was already so sick from radiation, I couldn't take the chemo on top of it, and discontinued. After I finished radiation, I went back to the MO and RO to find out if I should undergo the chemo.

The MO said there was no protocol for it, I could try it and if it made me too sick, discontinue. The RO said there's no point, it would be like 'putting on the meat tenderizer after the steak was done' In other words, the purpose of chemo (as I understand it) is to 'enhance' the radiation. Radiation is the curative 'driver'.

Riley

Praveen,
remember also that tumors shed cancer cells into the blood everyday so the chemo will take care of those also, even if it isn't a "front line" cure for head & neck cancer. It used to be that the primary chemo was Cisplatin, administered every 3 weeks during radiation but more and more are getting different chemo treatments now like F5U, Taxotere and Erbitux.