
As an American citizen residing in Saudi Arabia, I am sharing my independently developed approach and successful personal experience in reducing debilitating dermatological side effects associated with targeted lung cancer medication. My journey of discovery of how to reduce my cancer medication's debilitating side effects began with my being diagnosed with stage 4 non-small cell Exon-20 type lung cancer. in July 2024. Luckily for me, the FDA had just approved Johnson & Johnson's biological targeted Exon 20 lung cancer therapy, Amivantamab. I responded very well to the infusion- based treatments and I was stage 1 cancer within a few months of the successful series of treatments. After achieving this goal, I started receiving a maintenance dose of 1750 mg Amivantamab, via infusions, every 3 weeks, at KFSH in Riyadh. The only drawback to this life-saving therapy was that Amivantamab, in addition to treating the cancer also induced severe paronychia which attacks the patient's skin as well as fingernails and toenails causing never-ending small open wounds, all the time. These open wounds bleed sporadically and uncontrollably. The other common dermatological side effect that Amivantamab causes are acute acneiform which manifests itself in the form acute rashes on the face, chest and back. Taking antibiotics for more than 2 or 3 weeks is counter-productive because the medication disrupts the patient's levels of AST and ALT. If these levels are abnormal, the cancer patient has to forego the infusion sessions until his/her liver enzymes are back to normal. That could mean missing 1 or more lifesaving Amivantamab anti-cancer infusions. I embarked on a 17 months -long experiment to see if I could discover a safe and sustainable way to reduce Amivantamab's disfiguring and always- painful side effects while keeping up the efficacy of the life-saving medication- which I would have to keep taking every 3 weeks as a maintenance dose to keep my cancer under control. In May of 2025 I asked that my dose of Amivantamab be reduced to the next level down-1400 mg. Within several weeks I noticed an improvement in the paronychia dermatological side effects. The degree of pain had lessened and there was less sporadic bleeding. After 9 weeks at this new lower dose I got a PET scan of my lungs, including the remaining lesion in my left lung. The radiologist's report said that everything was ok and that my lesion was now a little reduced in size On September 2025 I started the lowest dose that was possible, 1050 mg to take in my 3- weekly infusions which have continued to the present. After about 7 weeks I noticed further improvement of the paronychia side effects in the form of the lessening of the strength of the dermatological side effects. the rashes on my chest and back reduced in scope and strength. My fingertips and toes bled less frequently and stopped bleeding more quickly. I also no longer needed to take pain killer pills as the constant pain in all my fingertips and most toes subsided. Overall, my side effects dropped to about 50 percent of what they were when I was taking the higher dose of 1750 mg. In addition, the PET and CT scans showed no change in the lesion on my lung. It was stable and the cancer was under control. In July 2026 I decided to try going to HBO sessions to see how much more I could reduce the side effects of taking Amivantamab. After 6-7 sessions of 2 hours each, I was seeing even more improvements. The redness and high sensitivity of my fingertips had largely disappeared. Three months after adding the 2-3 times weekly HBO sessions on top of the lowest dose of 1050 mg of Amivantamab has resulted in a dramatic change for the better of all the side effects. I have noticed an 80% + improvement in all paronychia and acute acneiform dermatological side effects. My Oncologist and My regular Amivantamab infusion nurse both noticed the big improvements. They said that there was no Amivantamab patient they knew, out of hundreds that he had seen who had next to no visible dermatological side effects and no need of antibiotics or daily pain killers. I am able to make the following recommendations to achieve significant reductions of the dermatological side -effects with a high degree of confidence.
