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Can you go back to Irinotecan?

Monicaemilia
Monicaemilia CSN Member Posts: 455 Member
edited March 2014 in Colorectal Cancer #1
Has anyone gone back to Irinotecan after having had tumour growth on Irinotecan. What I mean is, can you go back and try after having had an extended break of, let's say, a year? Monica
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Comments

  • taraHK
    taraHK CSN Member Posts: 1,952 Member
    #2
    Sorry - don't know
    Good question -- I am sorry I don't know the answer.

    I have gone back to FOLFOX (oh joy), with a different agent added

    And I'm now on xeledo, which is just a variation of 5FU (but SSHH! -- I'm trying to trick my body into thinking it's a new drug).

    Good luck with your question and with your path.

    Tara
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  • rthornton
    rthornton CSN Member Posts: 346 Member
    #3
    I tried Irinotecan for four
    I tried Irinotecan for four cycles last year, with little or no results (well, my CEA continued to climb). This year I have mets in both lungs and the pleural lining, so I am trying Irinotecan again, starting my fifth cycle this Friday (infusions for two weeks then a week off), with the intention of enduring six cycles. I get scanned after my fifth cycle to see if it has helped any. I am using it with Xeloda and Avastin. Since I haven't been scanned yet, I don't know if it is really helping. To answer your question about whether others go back to it, I guess that would be a yes ... at least in my case. Then again, my doctor considers a full regimen to be six cycles and I only went through four cycles last spring.
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  • maglets
    maglets CSN Member Posts: 2,576 Member
    #4
    rthornton said:

    I tried Irinotecan for four
    I tried Irinotecan for four cycles last year, with little or no results (well, my CEA continued to climb). This year I have mets in both lungs and the pleural lining, so I am trying Irinotecan again, starting my fifth cycle this Friday (infusions for two weeks then a week off), with the intention of enduring six cycles. I get scanned after my fifth cycle to see if it has helped any. I am using it with Xeloda and Avastin. Since I haven't been scanned yet, I don't know if it is really helping. To answer your question about whether others go back to it, I guess that would be a yes ... at least in my case. Then again, my doctor considers a full regimen to be six cycles and I only went through four cycles last spring.

    wow
    wow rthorton...you have been through the wringer ....good luck with all that.

    Tara I am with you I just try to trick my body into thinking xeloda is not ever related to 5 FU cuz we did not relate at all. Monica my onc would not put me back on 5 FU bolus...people on this forum will be a lot more knowlegable than I...I even forget the term she called it when you are re-introducing a drug....I think every onc might be different on this but she did not want to try it again because I had such a violent re-action....

    we are all so different with our re-actions to chemo....glad I am not an oncologist!

    mags
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