Cancer Pill?

[Pravda]

Sorry if this is a bit vague as this was translated to me. A friend of my wife just found out she has a stage 4 cancer. She went to a somewhat expensive hospital where they did a scan on her stomach and discovered this. She was then given this pill which costs 1500 per pill and it has to be taken every day. Fortunately as she works for the government she is insured. Basically she was told if the takes this pill she can probably live another 8 years.

 

Does anyone know what this pill is?

[ezzra]

Unfortunately, with stage 4 prospect of living beyond a year or two are dimmed at best and not knowing what type of cancer or the name of the medicine we are talking here it is very hard to tell and lend an advice, but still, sound far fetched that just by taking a pill life expectancy can be up to 8 years...  

[Pravda]

3 minutes ago, ezzra said:

Unfortunately, with stage 4 prospect of living beyond a year or two are dimmed at best and not knowing what type of cancer or the name of the medicine we are talking here it is very hard to tell and lend an advice, but still, sound far fetched that just by taking a pill life expectancy can be up to 8 years...  

 

Yes. I was also surprised by the 8 year estimate, that is why I was wondering if some new treatments are now available.

 

I think it was a colon, but not 100% sure.

[BritManToo]

57 minutes ago, Pravda said:

stage 4 cancer.

Chances of survival with treatment ............ 14% to 25% depending on where the cancer is.

[clivebaxter]

Pills for stage 4 cancer? they must have decided radiotheraphy and surgery not worth the bother. 

[Sheryl]

It is probably a targeted therapy like evacizumab (Avostin) or cetuximab (Erbitux).

 

Or possibly immunotherapy like Nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda

 

These are indeed very expensive.

 

It is highly unlikley she has 8 more years and I suspect she misheard or else chose to focus on the most optimum possible outcome.

 

These targeted therapies on average increase survival  by about 8 months. In general  the average survival is under a year. But there are always exceptions, a small percentage of people live much longer.

 

 

 

 

[lopburi3]

On 6/24/2021 at 12:20 PM, Sheryl said:

These targeted therapies on average increase survival  by about 8 months.

That may be it - 8 months not years - but the type of cancer plays a big part, although stage 4 is never good news.  And a hard look needs to be taken on those months being life or extra suffering.  The pills are only part of the cost as frequent medical tests are also required and side effects can be severe.  

[Soup Dragon]

There's an interesting video on youtube called "Sailing the world with only 6 months to live" (and a follow up) about a guy taking chemo tablets. He was diagnosed with lung cancer but was still doing well (last update 9 months ago) on these tablets called Tagrisso (osimertinib). My partner has recently gone through chemo-radiotherapy and surgery.It has been extremely gruelling for her but appears to have worked for now. But she's still in hospital (for just over 4 months now) due to complications from having type 1 diabetes. The doctors are hopeful that she can go home soon.