The thing with review sites, you tend to have no idea about the person who posted the review. Then there's the age-old, if you've had a bad experience with something, you tend to be more vocal. If things have gone swimmingly, you just get on with things and don't seek out review sites.

You see it on these forums. Not reviews, but "have i got cancer" posts. They post up until their hospital appointment and you never hear from them again. Why? Because things went swimmingly, and they have no need to ever post on this site again. But those who get bad news tend to stick around and tell people their story.

Given that everyone reacts differently to these things, given their different ages, general health and cancers. I'd say it is impossible to 'review' any treatment fairly. There are a few comparative studies done by medics to work out which is most effective for which cancer that might be worth a look - or ask your oncologist, what fraction of people suffer serious side effects with this treatment and what is the best, and what is the most likely, outcome we can expect from the treatment.

My husband has a different cancer but is on pembrolizumab every 3 weeks, probably for the next year. He has not had any problems with this drug - he can drive himself to and from his own infusion appointments. He was given antisickness meds etc... in case he needed them, but he hasn't so far. He feels a bit weary after about 3 or 4 days after an infusion. As for its efficacy - ask me in a year, he's been taking this since November so far.

Last summer he had one dose of ipimumab and nivolumab, but didn't make it to the second dose, as it caused liver problems in his case - 85% of people on that combination have a serious side effect by dose 3. Pembrolizumab was seen as a gentler option for him.

hiya thanks for your reply, hope its works for him a good while  does he get a scan every so often to see if its working

the dr is taking every 3 weeks and doing a scan 3 months to see if its working do you hubby get that as well  

All I can say is I had stage 4 lung cancer (secondary brain tumour cut out) and I went onto a course of pembolizumab. That was 4 years ago and I'm still here. It's good stuff.

As for the negative reviews on drugs.com I have to point out that the internet is rife with trolls and bad actors. Check out some of the names of those reviewers: "MrZ", "Anonymous", "Cowboy"... Who are you going to trust?

kind regards
Steve

thanks for yur reply  hope yur doing good   good man   how did you find the treatment when u were on it i know everyone is different  , had u many side effects if any 

Really hope u continure to do good    thanks 

For me the side effects weren't so great but I refused to just accept them, just figured out how to offset them, one at a time.

Diet is a tricky one to sort out, one food item at a time: take it out, wait and see, resume or stop, onto the next item and repeat.

Exercise is something that seems universal as good for prolonging survival. Bit of a catch-22 of course, cancer and treatment both drain the energy to do much more than veg out. Start off slow, anything is better than nothing, set targets no matter how trivial and progress. I found creatine monohydrate helped.

kind regards,
Steve

Hi Shellie 3 years dec i was diagnosed with lung cancer with mets unoperatable quite a shock was not given much time, option was this drug pembrolizumab (keytruda } i feel that this drug has given me quality time and although i only had 5 treatments -this happened because i did have side effects) this drug shrunk my tumours and i have regular ct scans .My cancer has been kept at bay, Of course everyone is different but to be offered this miracle drug is something else. take care.