Terminal Mouth Cancer - Treatment Options after Immunotherapy

Sorry to hear about your Dad.  I think you need to ask your clinical team what the chemo is for and what the side effects may be.  Generally in H&N cancer the chemo is fairly "lightweight" and used to sensitise the cancer cells so the radiotherapy is more effective.  Not everybody has chemo and not everybody feels ill after chemo. However, I suspect that the chemo they are suggesting is to deal with the other tumours (are they all in his mouth or at distant sites??) and is designed to reduce pain and may not be the same as many have had on this site.  They may also suggest some radiotherapy for the same effect.

Immunotherapy is in its infancy, especially for H&N cancers so there may not be any other realistic alternatives.  Sorry.

Thanks for your reply. After posting this I saw another post on here about the Modi 1 trial, investigated and managed to speak to Dr Miller about my dads suitability for the trial and so far he appears to be a suitable candidate. He is luckily based in Nottingham where they are recruiting, has squamous head and neck cancer which is one of the types for the trial, and his immunotherapy is Pembrolizumab which they are trialling modi 1 with in cohort 3. Quite a lucky set of circumstances! Meeting with his consultant on 15th november so going to ask them to refer my dad to the trial. Fingers crossed. 

Hi fingers x please keep us in loop. We all try to work together knowledge is power. 
Hazel 

will do, thanks

Sharpeye said:

Quite a lucky set of circumstances!

I was going to shout Modi to you the second I read your post but reading on I see you’ve found it. We have Tillymint on Modi2 so fingers crossed you can get your dad in the trial 

Please do let us know how things go. 

Your story illustrates how informed  we have to be to keep our heads above water. You’d think our team would know more than we do but sadly it’s not always the case. 

I have nothing but praise for the nhs and the care my dad has received, but you are very right. He had had 2 months of no treatment and just palliative care when I luckily read that guardian article about immunotherapy. His consultant hadn’t suggested it and he’s gained at least an extra year so far by having it. Which is why I’m now reading and searching for things like Modi as anything is worth a try. X