Health News (CML) From UK & France

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Some with leukemia can safely stop Gleevec (October 20, 2010)

" LONDON (Reuters) - Some leukemia patients may be effectively cured by taking

modern cancer pills, giving a small minority of patients the option of

discontinuing treatment, French researchers said on Wednesday. It had been

thought that chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) would inevitably return if treatment

with drugs such as Novartis's Gleevec, or imatinib, was discontinued.

But an interim analysis of a small French clinical study published in the Lancet

Oncology journal found certain CML patients were able to survive without relapse

for up to two years after ending therapy. So-called tyrosine kinase inhibitor

drugs like Gleevec, which was introduced in 2001, have transformed the treatment

of CML but cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. Medical experts have been

interested in investigating the idea of stopping treatment, rather than

continuing indefinitely as is current standard practice, following evidence of

diminishing rates of progression in certain patients.

The French study found that of 69 patients who had done well on Gleevec for at

least two years and then stopped taking it, 41 percent remained in complete

molecular remission (CMR) after one year and 38 percent were clear for up to two

years. "

SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/nam49p The Lancet Oncology, November 2010.

http://tinyurl.com/2eofat7

FYI,

Lottie Duthu