Can we stop drug therapy after PCRU?

May 16, 2008

I have read some other posts where someone had said that if they

stay in a complete response PCRU for two years they can stop taking

the meds. Is this true? Has there been any studies to support

this? I can only hope!!

>

> Patti

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Hi Patti,

In the " olden days " when Interferon was the only available drug,

there was only a small group of people who reached CCR on it. Those

who were lucky enough to do so, and remain there for two years were

sometimes taken off of the drug and still many remained in CCR so

essentially they were cured. Unfortunately the number of people in

this category were very few.....less than 15% so for most, getting a

cure was nothing more than a pipe dream.

When Gleevec came around, some speculated that the same would hold

true, if we could get a great response and remain there for two

years, we'd get the same " cure " that those on Interferon got. It

didn't take long however to find that this wasn't the case at all.

Interferon works very differently than Gleevec (or any of the TKI's)

which is why the same theories can't be applied.

There have been many reports of people going off of Gleevec after a

sustained response and virtually every single one of them has

relapsed (some into a more advanced stage of disease even) so none of

the doctors are recommending anyone to stop therapy.

Take care,

Tracey

dx Jan 2002

May 17, 2008

This is relevant:

B from California

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