Is Bevacizumab Safe To Take After Being Diagnosed With Ischaemic Heart Disease?
M y , Sen, elder son of a lung-cancer patient, Mr. Sen, writing to you to get your valuable advise.
Mr. XXXXXXX Sen has been diagnosed with Lung-Cancer during August-2017. As per the advise of Dr. XXXXXXX Prabhash, Professor, Department of Medical Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, XXXXXXX XXXXXXX treatment is going on for last 7 months. I am attaching the referrals (1st cycle and 2nd cycle) by the doctor and clinical reports.
However, the health condition of my father is getting deteriorated day by day. He is having several side effects of the chemo-therapy, e.g. nose bleeding, fever, etc. More importantly his pain is not getting reduced.
It will be very kind of you if you please review the case and kindly inform me if there is any further possible treatment for my father.
Looking forward to your kind advise.
Best regards,
Sincerely,
XXXXXXX Sen
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Palliative chemotherapy with pemetrexed only.
Detailed Answer:
Hi
Your father is suffering from stage 4 lung cancer and now the disease has spread to his nodes, liver, and bones
Since your father is having comorbidity like ischaemic heart disease the drug bevacizumab cannot be given with pemetrexed as palliative chemotherapy as suggested by Tata Memorial Hospital as it causes severe stroke or heart problems which may include blood clots, XXXXXXX stroke, heart attack, chest pain, and his heart may become too weak to pump blood to other parts of your body called congestive heart failure.
These can sometimes be fatal.
The drug also causes nosebleeds.
My advise to u is to go for palliative chemotherapy with single drug pemetrexed only.
It does not cause such side effects.
Palliative chemotherapy will only reduce his symptoms but will not cure the disease.
Average survival time is around 2 years.
For fever, he needs to do blood culture test.
If any bacteria are found in culture then sensitive antibiotics have to be given.
For pain, tablet morphine can be taken with doctors advice.
For nose bleed, he can take tablet tranexamic acid tablet 500 mg twice daily for 3 days
The palliative chemotherapy with pemetrexed should be given for 3 cycles at 21 days interval followed by a PET Scan.
Hope I have answered your query.
Take care
Regards,
Dr Monish De, Oncologist