My mom has stage 4 lung cancer

[momoffour70]

My 60 year old mom has recently been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer (never smoked a day in her life) with mets to the lymph nodes, kidney, and brain.  She is having stereotactic radiation on the brain tumor and is proceeding with chemo soon.  We know that she has only a short time to live, however, we are hoping the treatments will give us some additional time with her. I am mostly concerned with her quality of life and wanting her to have some good days yet.  What can we expect from treatments as far as side effects and overall effectiveness?

[gramical]

I have a friend who has been diagnoised with lung cancer, she also has a tumur behind her ear and on her spinal cord which they tell us can erupt soon and she will become paralyed. They told us that she has only 3 months to live and she is in alot of pain and morfin is not working. We would like to know if it is worth putting her through chomo when she is already in such a bad state.

[HeinrikMD]

Hi,

The chemotherapy generally produces periods of fatigue and immune suppression. Different drugs would produce different severities of these side effects, different people only tolerate some drugs more than others. The period of weariness generally improves within a week of receiving the first drug. The period of immune suppression generally falls within 10 to 14 days after receiving the first drug. Some patients may feel nothing at all - but some may develop fever and outright infections - hospitalization could be required.

Some chemo drugs produce nausea and vomiting - but there are a number of good drugs to control these effects. The changes in taste perception are pretty hard to correct - but one good tip would be: preparing food that is easy to swallow (the longer the chewing required- the more likely will taste be impaired)

Some drugs produce hair loss. If this would be an issue - perhaps preparations for a wig could be started.

Some drugs produce pins and needles sensation in the hands and soles, but this is generally cumulative, so it may start becoming a problem after the 3rd round or so.

There are a number of drugs and combinations of drugs that can be used for lung cancer - part of the decision would be to consider which side-effects may be unacceptable.