Stopping Gleevec

November 19, 2008

Hi Everyone,

This abstract deals with patients who stopped taking Gleevec after

they were PCRU (at least a 5 log reduction) for at least 2 years:

The beginning of the abstract talks about that famous study done in

France that we often quote.

This was the study where 15 people stopped taking Gleevec. 7 out of

the 15 patients relapsed within 6 months (47%), while 8 remained PCRU

after a median follow up of 37 months (53%). The important thing to

note with these patients is that they all had previously taken

Interferon and the majority of them actually had a response to it

when they took it.

The rest of the abstract deals with a follow up study that was done

to further investigate this issue.

The math is a bit odd in this part but this is what I got out of it:

-34 patients were evaluated after stopping Gleevec.

-19 relapsed which to me represents 56%, (all but 1 relapse happened

within 6 months of stopping Gleevec).

-11 of those who relapsed had never taken Interferon which to me

represents 58% but somehow the abstract quotes this figure as being

44%.

-8 of those who relapsed had taken Interferon in the past which to me

represents 42% but for some reason the abstract quotes this

percentage as being 32%.

-10 patients who had previous treatment with Interferon remain PCRU

which to me represents 29%.

-5 patients who had no previous Interferon treatment remain PCR which

to me, represents 15%.

To make the math even stranger, at the conclusion of this abstract,

they conclude that more than half of the patients who stopped Gleevec

having had NO prior treatment with Interferon, remained PCRU. In my

calculations, this group of people represented only 15% which is far

less than half so I'm not sure what to make of this. Anyway you look

at it, I wouldn't feel comfortable stopping treatment.

Tracey

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