Temador
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Has anyone had any experience with temador for metatastic melanoma? Has it worked for you or have you had a lot of side effects? Thanks Hi, I am stage IV since december 2011, with multiple mets in liver. As I live in Turkey, where Vemurafenib or IPI are not available, I’ve been treated with Temodar (I guess you are asking about Temodar, not Temador?). I had very good experience with that drug. I took a total of 12 cycles, with minimum side effects (just slight disturbance in my blood count and mild nausea for 3-4 days every month). It managed to control my mets, they shrunk and don’t seem active on PET scan (but MRI shows they are still there).
Hope it will work for you,
Good luck
Biljana
Temador is a type (expensive!) pill form of dacarbazine. Dacarbazine has been in many clinical trials and has about a 20% response rate. Temador really hasn’t been scrutinized in randomized trials, so we know very little about it. It is said to be one that can cross blood brain barrier and help with brain mets. But I’ve found very little in the literature about it. My partner, Margaret, was on TMZ in late 2010. AS Catherine said, it is a cytotoxin that works much like dacarbazine, but it has a slightly higher response rate (1%) and it can pass the blood/brain barrier. At that time, Margaret had a small tumour in the brain and a larger one in the bowel. TMZ kept the brain stable and significantly reduced the bowel tumour. The down side is that it is typically only effective for about 4-6 months–5 mths for Margaret. It was fairly easy to take; the only significant side effect she had was fatigue–in bed most nights by 7:00. Good luck with it, and sleep well! Here is an excellent overview: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1891190/ It said that Temodar is equal to dacarbazine in response rates, which was 15% at highest and that it is of course more convenient because it is an oral drug.
My Mother, who is 86, has Stage IV Melanoma and it has metastisized to her lung. She took Temador for 6 months and had no side effects, except a day of diarrhea sometimes. Her lung tumor continued to grow so they started her on Yervoy this past Monday and so far she is tolerating it very well. I took temodar for a year. As I understand it, it is as effective as DTC, but the side-effects are far milder. I had a partial response and didn’t find the drug hard to tolerate — was a bit anaemic. Took bactrin along with it as there is some risk of lung infections while on it. Our oncologist at one time mentioned putting Rachel on a low, continueos dose of Temador. He said it can act like a different drug that way, is better tolerated and is more effective. Maybe one of the medical advisors can educate us a bit on Temador. Jeff
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