Re: Interaction between Vit C and Gleevec

June 26, 2007

Tracey:

This discussion and your message that follows are poignant in my search.,

In fact, my local oncologist brought up this same scenario when he met with a

staff of Novartis personnel today and discussed my case. As some of you may

remember, my last PCR in March was a 2 log increase from .05 in March of 06

to 6.62 in March of 07, An increase that we did not feel comfortable with.

After extended discussions with MDACC, Novartis and even BMS, we have opted to

make a change to Sprycel if we did not get better results on the retest from

peripheral blood at the 3 month point. And there would be a possibility to

have a full BMB aspiration and send the tests to MDCC; to create medial lines

for comparative tests.

Regardless - my nice 6.62 from my last painful BMA seems to have quieted

down to 0.00 on that test. Yes, the magic number my 8 year old daughter has

been praying for daily.....zero point zero zero.......a 3 log reduction and a

real weight off my shoulder. I hope that this gives me a Number from Zavie,

Zavie, do I get a PCRU number after a test of 0.00?

My local on oncologist is excited and called my house immediately and has

re-challenged me to a 150 mile bike trek in September over two days. He says

with these numbers, statistics show a 97% chance that I will live 5 years and

you know what, I will take that and not even question how much farther than

that.

So Zavie, please place me in the PCRU club and others who have not made it,

keep on going and taking the proper doses and you will get there first.

My oncologist brought up the discussion of drug interactions, especially as

it relates to Gleevec. He is forwarding articles on interaction with

grapefruit, St. johns wart, Vitamin C and others. I have also been searching,

as I

could not log into the site that forwarded. He feels my test was due

to improper ingesting of vitamins or other sources that reduce the

effectiveness of Gleevec

So thanks to Tracey, Zavie and for giving us data on Drug Interaction,

what of the most under-understood Gleevec issues. I strongly believe that

certain side effects drugs can act with Gleevec and create emotional or trauma

personality disorders, if taken too often. I am much more careful of what I

take now and most of you are probably doing that as well, after reading some

of the data.

My best regards to you all. We are in the fight and at least for today, my

team won this battle.

And , I made it without any comment about Law, Lawyers,Tort Reform or

Tax Lawyers.

With warm regards,

Matt

ville, FL

Since January 2005

Gleevec at 800 mg in March of 2006

Gleevec at 400 mg in March of 2007

In a message dated 6/26/2007 10:42:14 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

traceyincanada@... writes:

Hi Everyone,

I've been doing some more surfing on drug interactions and came across

a study that shows how Vitamin C can interact with drugs that are

metabolized with the CYP3A4 isoenzyme.

It seems that Vitamin C is a CYP3A4 inducer which means that it could

potentially reduce the absorption of Gleevec.

If anyone is taking Vitamin C, particularly in high doses, I would

Myhencourage you to talk to your doctor about it. Here is one article

that describes the interaction:

_http://www.medscapehttp://www.medschttp://ww_

(http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/501447_4)

Tracey

************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

June 26, 2007