Kadcyla

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A regular pet scan showed that the cancer has spread to different parts of my body.  To treat this, I changed to a new oncologist as she was very thorough with her plans to treat me. To fight this, I will be on Kadcyla targeted therapy for a long time.  As I am now a Stage 4 cancer patient, there isn't any cure but this treatment is to block the growth and spread of cancer, thus prolonging my life.

Kadcyla (pronounced Kad-cy-la), also known as trastuzumab emtansine, is a targeted therapy for the treatment of advanced HER2-positive breast cancer.  This is given to patients that have already received treatment with other HER2 targeted therapies such as Herceptin and Perjeta.

Basically Kadcyla is a combination of Herceptin and chemotherapy given as a single treatment. This type of treatment is called an antibody-drug conjugate. 

I get Kadcyla every 3 weeks.  And, it's very expensive, even with the special patient assist program by Roche Pharmaceutical.  If I'm not covered by insurance, there is no way I can do this. 

Fortunately Kadcyla didn't have major side effects on me, except for occasional fatigue and bloody nose.  There are times I get rashes after the session but it goes of after a few days.  Basically Kadcyla is tolerable.

 Here's hoping it will always go well, and maybe heal me? Miracles do happen!


 

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