What’s Next on the Big C? (Hopefully a Second Opinion)

(Hopefully a second opinion)

When I last wrote on The Big C, a Showtime series in which the actress Laura Linney portrays a woman in her forties with advanced melanoma, I considered some of the options she might choose when the series resumes next Monday night.

At the end of Season 1, she elected to try a course of IL-2 as was recommended by her young oncologist. Meanwhile, the FDA has approved Ipilimumab (Yervoy), an antibody treatment that revs up the immune system. And she’s in line, according to the script, for possible entry into a clinical trial that likely involves a targeted therapy, like vemu­rafenib for patients whose malignant cells have a genetic mutation in B-RAF.

What I expect Cathy will do, before anything else happens and she receives any additional non-urgent treatment for her advanced melanoma, is get a second opinion. She’s a smart, sensible sort; in retrospect it’s hard to believe she didn’t do this earlier on and before starting the IL-2 therapy.

I wonder, also, if one of her family members or friends will do some research about melanoma on the Internet. That would help her find a doctor with appropriate expertise, and better know what questions she should ask of the oncologist during the consultation.

That’s all on Cathy’s decision, until next week.

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Related Posts:

• Does Cathy Make the Right Cancer Treatment Decision in the Big C?
• Interleukin 2, Cathy’s Planned Treatment in the Big C
• Cathy Wants a New Doctor and a Second Opinion
• First Take On the Big C
• Cathy Swims and Runs in Episode 6, Season 2 of the Big C