My husband found out on Friday that he will be taking Tarceva. I understand that a rash is one of the major sides. It does sound like this drug is something that will keep him around a little longer.

Leslieliu, Phew, that sounds good, staying around longer. My mom is taking an antibiotic with the Tarceva to combat the rash. It is very minimal but it does itch. She has been on the Tarceva about three weeks now...Let me know how it goes for your husband if you can...Thanks so much Leslieliu!

My husband is on his 3rd week of Tarceva. He's on an antibiotic for the rash and also experiencing extreme fatigue. I guess the fatigue is from a combination of Tarceva and just recently finishing radiation therapy. Hope your mother is doing well.

Hi Leslieliu, thanks for your input. We just got back from three days in the hospital and three days in the rehab hospital...from dehydration. So be careful that your husband takes in fluids...it does cause dehydration (Tarceva and all Chemo from what the nurses told me). Mom is now home, but in a very weakened state. She is also sleeping most of the day and night...so I kind of look at it as a blessing, she is not in pain...just tired as hell. She is going on her third bottle of Tarceva...in a week or so...so she has been on it nearly two months. Good luck and keep up any observations you may have, it helps me help her to understand what is going on too...You and your husband are in my prayers.

Standard chemotherapy kills cells, cancer as well as normal ones. Chemotherapy has some success with solid tumors like lung but ise not as successful as one would like. In recent years, scientists developed targeted drugs which only mildly impact normal cells, but target specific cell mutations that are carcinogenes or oncogenes.

Tarceva targets something called the EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor). For EGFR positive patients, Tarceva has an impressive response rate of about 60% far more than the 20-25% response rate for standard chemotherapy. EGFR positive patients are primarily non-smokers and light former smokers. A test tells if a patient is EGFR positive.

Most smokers are EGFR negative. They have about a 10% response rate, less than conventional chemotherapy. For the EGFR negative patients, Tarceva is frequently used as second or third therapy after other treatments are shown to be ineffective.
Whether other drugs would be better or more effective than Tarceva for EGFR negative patients is debated.