← Return to Stage 4 metastasized bladder cancer: Treatments not working, help

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Clinical guidelines typically suggest padcev + keytruda at this stage. The good news: it can be highly effective. My oncologist stated 30% "cure" rate. Many with complete response will proceed to keytruda only (less severe side effects). The bad news: padcev especially can be highly toxic with neuropathy, loss of taste and smell, severe fatigue, nausea, skin lesions and other problems , loss of eyesight and worse. Padcev is targeted medicine: it targets cancer cells with NECTIN expression and delivers a highly toxic payload. Keytruda is a PDL1 blocker immunotherapy. Similar to avelumab and nivolumab. Atezolizumab is rarely used anymore for bladder cancer and not for stage 4 I believe but I could be wrong.

Unfortunately, bladder adenocarcinoma is exceedingly rare (< 2% of cases) and as such treatments are more experimental as there are few to no clinical studies on it as it is near impossible to recruit patients due to its rarity.

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Replies to "Clinical guidelines typically suggest padcev + keytruda at this stage. The good news: it can be..."

Sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis. I, too, have stage IV cancer of the bladder. I am 2 years into the diagnosis, now receiving Padcev. In my case, I have had good response to the drug, however, I do experience moderate peripheral neuropathy in my feet and reduced grip strength in my hands. My doctor says I will be on Padcev for the foreseeable future as that is working for me and is what is keeping me alive. I get CT scans every 3 months to check on my cancer.