The Impact Of Rituxan For The Treatment Of Follicular Lymphoma

The Impact Of Rituxan For The Treatment Of Follicular Lymphoma.
New scrutinization provides more affirmation that treating certain lymphoma patients with an high-priced drug over the long term helps them go longer without symptoms. But the drug, called rituximab (Rituxan), does not seem to significantly addition life span, raising questions about whether it's worth taking. People with lymphoma who are all things maintenance treatment "really need a discussion with their oncologist," said Dr Steven T Rosen, gaffer of the Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University in Chicago. The mug up involved people with follicular lymphoma, one of the milder forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a period that refers to cancers of the immune system.

Though it can be fatal, most woman in the street live for at least 10 years after diagnosis. There has been debate over whether people with the disease should adopt Rituxan as maintenance therapy after their initial chemotherapy. In the study, which was funded in part by F Hoffmann-La Roche, a pharmaceutical assembly that sells Rituxan, roughly half of the 1019 participants took Rituxan, and the others did not. All once upon a time had taken the drug right after receiving chemotherapy.

In the next three years, the look found, people taking the drug took longer, on average, to originate symptoms. Three-quarters of them made it to the three-year mark without progression of their illness, compared with about 58 percent of those who didn't use the drug. But the death rate over three years remained about the same, according to the report, published online Dec 21 2010 in The Lancet.

The knock out "should now be considered as first-line care for these patients," wrote Dr Gilles Salles of Hospices Civils de Lyon & Universite Claude Bernard in Lyon, France, and his examination colleagues. But Rosen said there's still a break up over use of the drug as maintenance therapy. "Physicians are falling into two groups. One says, 'There was no survival advantage, I'd just hang about until you have enlargement and then retreat you.

That's not unreasonable'". Another group "would say that there's potentially better attribute of life during the period without disease. But the psychological benefits from not having any evidence of blight are hard to measure".

In a comment accompanying the report in The Lancet, Dr Jonathan Friedberg, of the hematology and oncology allotment at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY, wrote that "an breakdown of cost-effectiveness would be very helpful. In an era of increased health-care costs, what benefit is necessary to sustain the cost of this maintenance strategy, which at my institution would cost Medicare more than $60000 per patient?" Friedberg asked.

He also described as early the researchers' statement that maintenance therapy with the drug should be prescribed for all community with follicular lymphoma who are initially treated with rituximab plus chemotherapy hair spray thinning hair. "However, maintenance is an option," Friedberg said, adding that "the investigators are to be congratulated for this signal contribution and are strongly encouraged to on follow-up of these patients to answer the questions that remain".