Still Freaking Out a Little/question re PCRs/ and others

May 6, 2005

I hope you guys can help me out with this one. I had a PB-PCR

performed at MDACC which increased in six months from .04 to .3. The

PB-PCR was repeated at COH last week and the result was 8.3 x 10-5.

(By the way, I have no idea what that equation means...Is that more or

less than .3? Not that they can be compared realistically...) Dr.

Talpaz seems content to treat this as a possible fluctuation in

values. My doctor at COH (where I am followed locally)wants to repeat

my bone marrow and do a marrow PCR. Why would he want to do this? For

mutations testing? He only recently told me that they do perform some

mutations tests at COH but do not release the data to patients, nor do

they base any clinical treatment on the results of the tests.

I am on protocol since 4-01 at MDACC with 400 mg Gleevec. I have

prescription drug coverage and I would just as soon increase to 600mg,

but I assume that would take me off protocol. I have prescription drug

coverage, so free drug is not really an issue at this time.

So I am concerned about how I should handle this...What would you guys do?

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