Cimetidine help!

[FightCRC]

Would appreciate hearing from folks who have had experience with cimetidine (Tagamet). Looking for tips on usage/dosage for liver surgery (pre and post).

As well, any other supplements I should look into. Thanks in advance for any help!

[mariane]

Hi! I have been taking Cimetidine for almost 5 years I take 2x200 mg twice a day. I take it after I wake up and than one more dose in the evening. I call it my lucky charm. I don't know whether it is really effective but I have been NED, I have been feeling well. It doesn't hurt. It is the doses recommended by our dear Tom and other old timers.

[rp1954]

The primary clues to cimetidine dosing and duration are CA199 markers for blood and tissue. For patients with densely marked CA199 - CSLEX1 tissue from their tumors, long durations (1 yr) of cimetidine with daily chemo had very clear cut survival benefits for stage 2-3 CRC patients. There was more limited data from Japan for various stage 4 patients up to 3 yrs cimetdine, but favorable too.

To give a worst case example, Matsumoto(2002+patent) showed that all the high intensity CA199 - CSLEX1 stage 2 patients died within 6 years. Wiped out without cimetidine with their 5FU chemo (1 year). Whereas none of those same type stage 2 patients treated with cimetidine died before 6 years; most did not die of CRC with ~10 yrs followup). These high intensity stage 2 patients probably had a high % associated with HIF-2a / BRAF mutations (my interpretation of various data). If repeatable, this would be faaaaar better than Folfox or Xeloda alone for the same type of CA199+CSLEX1 marked patients.

Based on some preclinical studies, there is a possibility of dose dependent, target based cimetidine benefits. Note that women often can take higher doses than men, so I had my wife take up to 1600 mg/day for several years. Contrariwise, for ultralow CA199 - under 2 units, cimetidine has no benefit for long term use, maybe some cost or risk.

Step 1 is to get some CA199 data. It's just crazy without CA199, based on potential cimetidine benefits, to make blind long term tx decisions. Progress is the summation of correct steps that we take. One by one.