Stage IV MET Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Amy's Patient Story
This lung cancer diagnosis at a glance
- Stage at diagnosis
- Stage IV
- Subtype
- Squamous Cell Carcinoma
- Biomarkers
- MET amplification
- Sex
- Female
- Spread to
- Bone/femur and hips; adrenal gland
- Treatment
- immunotherapy, bone modifying agent, radiation, targeted therapy, local therapy and surveillance
- Outcome
- Living With Cancer
Treatment course, step by step
- Radiation was given for about 1 month to femur and hips while on Keytruda because of painful bone metastasis
- Crizotinib continued after MET amplification was found
- Monitoring included PET scans every 4 months and brain MRI every 6 months
- Focused lung radiation was given as 5 sessions over 5 days
- Cryoablation was done once to the adrenal gland
- Plan was to continue Crizotinib until it stopped working or became too toxic.
What happened, in summary
Amy’s third video focuses on living with Stage IV squamous cell lung cancer after several years of treatment. During her earlier Keytruda treatment period, she developed a painful bone metastasis in the femur and hips. The pain became severe enough that she needed radiation for about 1 month while still on Keytruda. Radiation itself was not painful, but she needed careful positioning with a mold around her hips and later had burning that was treated with Silvadene. After biomarker testing found MET amplification, Amy moved to Crizotinib, also called Xalkori in the series. Follow-up PET imaging after 3 months showed a major change, and by this segment she described herself as stable rather than no evidence of disease. There was still some activity lighting up in the lung and adrenal gland, which her doctor said could represent dead tissue or treatment effect. To address those areas, she had SBRT, a focused high-dose radiation approach, to the lung area for 5 sessions over 5 days. She also had one cryoablation procedure to freeze the adrenal-gland tumor. As of July 2022, Amy was getting PET scans every 4 months, brain MRI every 6 months, and continuing Crizotinib until it stopped working or became too toxic.
Where this story comes from
This is a lay summary of an account first published by The Patient Story. Read the original in full
These are lay summaries of published cancer stories, for information only. No two cancers behave the same way, and nothing here predicts your own diagnosis or replaces advice from your oncology team.