Info - Why I am on Tafinlar and Mekinist

I started this blog 8 months after being diagnosed with metastatic bile duct cancer in April 2022. My first (traditional) chemotherapy treatment was with Gemcitabine and Cisplatin, given biweekly via infusion. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful.

Because of that, and because I did test positive for a mutated BRAF gene, I then qualified for a targeted therapy treatment.

I started targeted therapy (Tafinlar and Mekinist) in August 2022. These two drugs are in the form of pills, also called oral chemotherapy, and are taken twice a day every day. You can see photos of them on this blog. 

I will also be referring to them as chemo in this blog because they fall under that wider umbrella.

Though this targeted therapy has been around for 4 years at this point in time, it was initially approved for Melanoma. It was only approved for all solid tumor cancers in July 2022, one month before I started on it.

So, I am the only patient at my hospital with my cancer type and the mutated BRAF V600E gene who is currently on these targeted therapy medications. Therefore, in some ways it is uncharted territory.

Because of being one of very few patients with my cancer type on this relatively new type of chemo, direct information from patients being hard to find. So we started this blog hoping to add to that information. 

So far, I am doing well. My first scans, 2 months after starting this targeted therapy, we scans showed that my liver tumors shrunk by 15-50%. I will go into greater detail on each blog post. 

Topics will include - Info, Tips, Insurance, Chonicles, Symptoms, Scans, etc.

I'd love it if you comment to let me know publishing such articles are worthwhile and helpful, and to keep working on it. Thanks!