Continuous‐infusion 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU) dose 200mg/m2

[Geolo85]

Please offer any thoughts and knowledge as my husband is considering this treatment. I found this study from Mar 2017, https:/ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5905692/. Haven't found much more as relates to advanced pca. Can anyone provide more info or links? Also saw the post in this forum about study with 29 patients. Couldn't read full article where it started describing side effects/adverse events.

[Dont08759]

wow! My experience was for stage C rectal cancer 34 years ago. I was given 5-FU as a weekly bolus (6 weeks on, 1 week off). I was 41 at the time and dosed on Friday as they knew the side effects (diarrhea) would make working unlikely. I do not know the dose, but my blood was checked weekly and I was dosed accordingly. I was told they were poisoning me to a point to kill Mets and not kill me. They gave me what they felt I could tolerate. Right before it was administered they gave me a hard candy to suck on as you could taste the 5-FU as soon as it was administered. I was also scripted Allopurinol to be taken orally the day before, the day of and day after. This was to help dump excess Uric Acid from the 5-FU. I had two older friends who having the exact same treatment as I and not given Allopurinol and their side effects were worse than mine. Although I was operated on for lung Mets 4 years later I alway thought this hated treatment is partially responsible for me being around 34 years later considering at that time I was in the 5 year 5% survival group. I did wonder if the FU in Flurouricil stood for something different considering what it did to my digestive tract! Best of luck and keep us posted…

[Geolo85 in reply to Dont08759]

Thanks for your input. Yes, interesting abbreviation chosen. Certainly feel "screwed" having to opt for the last ditch effort treatment. No mention of Allopurinol but the 5 FU will be a low dose continuous infusion with pump through a port. I'll ask though. SE's mentioned were mouth sores (concerning), sunburned feeling on hands and feet, and diarrhea. Told few experienced these but that was before I knew to ask if this was based on only a study of 29 patients. Haven't found any articles on other studies. Seems like that means one of two things, men succumb to PCa before getting to this point, or other preferred treatments are working enough to keep them from getting to this point. I hope it's the latter.

[Dont08759 in reply to Geolo85]

now that I think of it, I did get the mouth sores. My dentist told me to gargle with a ,ixture of Kaopectate and liquid Benadryl for mouth sores. The Kaopectate helps the Benadryl stick to your gums…