XELOX Trial
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I visit this site often and have become emotionally involved in each of the stories that I read. This is such a difficult disease and I am always encouraged by any good news that others may have. Today I have a bit of my own. 20 months following a successful whipple surgery, my husband had a recuurence in August of ’06. The cancer had spread to the lymph nodesand bones. He also had three large tumors with countless lesions throghout his liver. He went down to 156 lbs. – he’s 6’5″. He could barely walk and was spending most of the day in bed and was not eating. He started a regimen of Erbitux, Camptosar and Avastin on October 16th. As of today all the cancer is gone except for two lesions on his liver. He also now weighs 188 lbs. No matter what, never ever give up hope. God bless you all.
Jeff –
Good luck! We’ll hope and pray for tumor shrinkage. One note on avastin – to my knowledge, no studies have been done on the effects of avastin on the renal system, so if kidneys are of concern, please check this out with your doc. God Bless!
Kathy & Terry,
Thanks for your posts and the encouraging results. I will begin a regime of Oxaliplatin, Xeloda and Avastin the first week of February and am pleased to hear of your success.
I’ll post my results after completing a couple of the 3 week cycles.-Peter
Kathy,
Thanks for the report. It’s important to know when anything is working. We will look forward to more updates on Pat and the clinical trial.
Stacie
At the Univ. of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center, I was on the clinical trial for oxalipaltin and Xelodia (capecitabine tablets) from May 2004 until October 2005 (see my experiences in the Introductions — Jerry D). The trial was so successful that the spots were no longer measurable in Oct, however, additionally my platelets did not return fast enough to the minimal amount between treatments (the last treatment was 7 weeks apart), so I was taken off the study.
In February 2006 spots began again and I went back on the study, however after two months treatment we found the drugs no longer worked — but at least they had worked for over a year the first time.
One caution, if a person is on Medicare, the oxalipaltin is not approved by Medicare for liver cancer from bile ducts, even though it is approved for liver cancer from the colon. Because of this, Medicare identifies it as “off label” and will not approve payment of the drug — which costs $12,000 per treatment for a person or $3,200 per treatment for a hospital/clinic. I guess that’s the difference between retail and wholesale. If a person cannot get payment by a secondary insurance, though, the company does have some plans to still get the drug administered which you can apply for.
Jerry Daniels
Platteville, WisconsinI visit this site every day as my friend Pat Martin (check out the Martin blog) was diagnosed with CC in February of this year. She has tried several things with limited success but has been in the XELOX trial at MD Anderson since the first of August. She just had her first follow up CT scan and got the results yesterday with an 18-20% decrease in the size of her tumors! Her oncologist, Dr. Glover, was thrilled beyond words and was most encouraging. Therefore, Pat will stay in the trial and stayed over to have her chemo while she was there. This trial is a mixture of Xeloda and Oxaliplatin and seems to be having good results with others also. I know that different drugs work for different people, but I would highly recommend the trial to anyone who hasn’t had any luck with their treatments yet. It’s the first good news that Pat has received since February so I wanted to pass it on and make sure everyone who might be looking for something has the opportunity to check out this trial.
Good luck to all in the CC family,
Kathy
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