More on Gleevec

[Guest guest]

Hi all - As the Cancer Guide for a major website I follow cancer information on

leading news sites, blogs and patient support groups.

The Dr. Oz Show on Gleevec has generated a lot of discussions about the " miracle

pill " ranging from news-oriented factual articles to patient inquiries about

whether this works for their form of cancer, to people with pets who have cancer

wanting to know where they can get the drug.

You may get inquiries too. Here are the approved uses of Gleevec, according to

Novartis:

Newly diagnosed adult patients with Philadelphia chromosome–positive chronic

myeloid leukemia (Ph+ CML) in the chronic phase.

Patients with Ph+ CML in blast crisis (BC), accelerated phase (AP), or in the

chronic phase (CP) after failure of interferon-alpha therapy

Patents with relapsed or refractory Ph+ acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL)

Adult patients with myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative diseases (MDS/MPD)

associated with PDGFR (platelet-derived growth factor receptor) gene

rearrangements

Adult patients with aggressive systemic mastocytosis (ASM) without the D816V

c-KIT mutation or with unknown mutational status

Adult patients with hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES) and/or chronic eosinophilic

leukemia (CEL) who have the FIP1L1-PDGFR & #945; fusion kinase and for patients

with HES and/or CEL who are FIP1L1-PDGFR & #945; fusion kinase–negative or unknown

Adult patients with unresectable, recurrent, and/or metastatic

dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP)

Patients with KIT (CD117)—positive gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) that

cannot be surgically removed, and/or have spread to other parts of the body

Adult patients post-surgery who have had their GISTs completely removed

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I've seen additional uses mentioned but the sources for the information were not

provided so I'm not including those in this list, and am not including clinical

trial use.

Pat from Phoenix

[Guest guest]

>

> Newly diagnosed adult patients with Philadelphia chromosome–positive chronic

myeloid leukemia (Ph+ CML) in the chronic phase.

>

> Patients with Ph+ CML in blast crisis (BC), accelerated phase (AP), or in the

chronic phase (CP) after failure of interferon-alpha therapy

________________________________

Thanks for posting this list Pat...I think it is a pretty impressive list of

cancers/diseases that Gleevec is used for.

It is interesting that Gleevec is front line (first used) treatment for chronic

phase CML but with AP and BC it is only ater failure of INF. Of course, that

does not happen....no one is put on INF first anymore....this is when the drug

is used 'off label' and that is the discretion of the oncologist. I believe this

is because the drug was really only tested on CP cml patients, so that it what

it is really approved for.

You bring a lot of good information to the list.

C.