Tarceva for bone mets?

[Miri75]

I wrote last week about my dad who was diagnosed with NSCLC in October 2007. At the time all his other scans were clear so he had surgery to remove his left lung. His lymph nodes were affected and removed. 4 rounds of chemo of taxotere and cisplatin seem to have not worked as now he has mets in his liver, bones and adrenal glands. His doctor is aftraid that Tarceva is not recommended to someone with mets to the bone. That is not what I read. Can you please let me know if Tarceva is for him and whether that can hep stop or slow down the disease?

Thanks.

[Miri75]

Thanks for your respnse. My father is obviously male, smoked for many years, but has adenocarcinoma, which tested EGFR positive. We are really hopeful that Tarceva will benefit him.

[Fernando Roque, MD]

Hi.  Tarceva can be given as a single agent after failure of first-line or second-line chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer.  However, Tarceva works best for certain subsets of patients: Asians, women, non-smokers, and those with adenocarcinoma histology.  This drug still has been found to benefit males, smokers, and those with squamous cell histology, but to a lesser extent.