A cold and Imfinzi immunotherapy

Small tumor in brain is not affecting me at this time. Thinking positive!

@suea813- Always! I am relieved to hear this!

suea813 - Sorry to just barge in here on your conversation but I'm so glad I found you!! If you feel well enough and have time will you please share more with me about the immunotherapy treatment? My husband was diagnosed with a lung tumor (small) and spread to a lymph node back in February 2018. The pathology doesn't show up as a specific type of cancer (possibly lung, possibly GI). We've been scanning and testing and frankly waiting for the cancer to show up somewhere other than the lung. His diagnosis was Stage IV Terminal Cancer of 'unknown primary'. After 18 months the doctors now feel fairly confident this is a primary lung cancer (because there is no cancer anywhere else) but there are still serious questions. Anyway.........
At our visit with the doctors yesterday they suggested that he has a very small amount of PDL1 and that Iniinzi might work.....wondering how you felt during treatment and now and how it's worked for you? My husband would have to do radiation and chemo to qualify to use immunotherapy and he's opposed, but if we knew that the immunotherapy might not be so bad, I might be able to get him to do a bit of chemo and radiation to get to the immunotherapy.
Anything you can offer would be most appreciated!
Hugs and good wishes for your continued improvement!!

I'd also like to bring @2onlow8 and @justapril into this discussion as they have some experience with taking IMFINZI® (durvalumab).

Cindy, I can understand your husband's reluctance to do chemo and radiation. It's not something one looks forward to. I can also understand your desire that he try everything possible. From what I understand according to this article (http://chemocare.com/chemotherapy/drug-info/durvalumab.aspx), durvalumab is used in people whose disease has not progressed following concurrent (given at the same time) platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation therapy. How many chemo/radiation treatments would he have to have?

He would have to get 2 chemo treatments and some form of radiation treatment. Our oncologist is checking with the radiation team on that although probably about 4 weeks radiation. From what I understand the chemo and radiation are FDA requirements and also it makes the cancer more receptive to the immunotherapy. It's not much (if my husband will agree at all to the chemo and radiation)......so that's why I'm trying to get as much information for him so we can make an educated decision.
First they said he'd be dead in months, then a year and now they say they have no idea......it might just go on like this for a very long time. The cancer tumor isn't growing but a new nodule has appeared that is very small in the same lung and might be another cancer or nothing at all.
My husband hasn't been feeling well for the last 3 months or so though. He has other health issues, COPD and peripheral neuropathy (which is quite bad in his feet from an accident many years ago). The neuropathy is another reason the doctors and my husband aren't looking too hard at chemo.
The decision now is..........could this immunotherapy hold off or even cure his cancer? Or would it be a year of more 'picky pokey' (that's what my husband calls this medical intervention) and no real upside. No one knows really.
We also don't know if the reason it hasn't grown is because it may never advance, it's being held off by the high doses of CBD and THC from the medical marijuana or if it might just go crazy some day soon.
We have no percentages, no protocols, etc. But at this follow up appointment the doctor seemed excited about this immunotherapy and I think, if side effects are reasonable or mild, that's the way to go. We'll have to wrestle with the chemo and radiation portions though.
Thanks for all your help!
Hugs