New Research In The Treatment Of Cancer Of Immune System

New Research In The Treatment Of Cancer Of Immune System.
New explore provides more display that treating certain lymphoma patients with an valuable drug over the long term helps them go longer without symptoms. But the drug, called rituximab (Rituxan), does not seem to significantly development life span, raising questions about whether it's worth taking. People with lymphoma who are in maintenance treatment "really need a discussion with their oncologist," said Dr Steven T Rosen, cicerone of the Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University in Chicago. The contemplation involved people with follicular lymphoma, one of the milder forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a locution that refers to cancers of the immune system.

Though it can be fatal, most individuals live for at least 10 years after diagnosis. There has been debate over whether people with the disease should kill Rituxan as maintenance therapy after their initial chemotherapy. In the study, which was funded in part by F Hoffmann-La Roche, a pharmaceutical throng that sells Rituxan, roughly half of the 1,019 participants took Rituxan, and the others did not. All at one time had taken the drug right after receiving chemotherapy.

In the next three years, the scan found, people taking the drug took longer, on average, to expand 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 snitch 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 tranquillizer "should now be considered as first-line therapy for these patients," wrote Dr Gilles Salles of Hospices Civils de Lyon & Universite Claude Bernard in Lyon, France, and his check out colleagues. But Rosen said there's still a disaffect over use of the drug as maintenance therapy. "Physicians are falling into two groups. One says, 'There was no survival advantage, I'd just halt until you have train and then re-treat you. That's not unreasonable.'"

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

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

He also described as unripe the researchers' statement that maintenance therapy with the drug should be prescribed for all commonality with follicular lymphoma who are initially treated with rituximab plus chemotherapy home. So "However, persistence is an option," Friedberg said, adding that "the investigators are to be congratulated for this important contribution and are strongly encouraged to keep up follow-up of these patients to answer the questions that remain".