The Impact Of Rituxan For The Treatment Of Follicular Lymphoma

The Impact Of Rituxan For The Treatment Of Follicular Lymphoma.
New fact-finding provides more show that treating positive lymphoma patients with an up-market drug over the long term helps them go longer without symptoms. But the drug, called rituximab (Rituxan), does not seem to significantly gain life span, raising questions about whether it's value taking. People with lymphoma who are in maintenance treatment "really need a analysis with their oncologist," said Dr Steven T Rosen, gaffer of the Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University in Chicago vitoviga. The memorize involved man with follicular lymphoma, one of the milder forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a sitting that refers to cancers of the immune system.

Though it can be fatal, most population live for at least 10 years after diagnosis. There has been think through over whether people with the disease should take Rituxan as maintenance therapy after their original chemotherapy. In the study, which was funded in part by F Hoffmann-La Roche, a pharmaceutical assemblage that sells Rituxan, violently half of the 1019 participants took Rituxan, and the others did not klonopin prices. All beforehand had taken the drug right after receiving chemotherapy.

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

The narcotic "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 check in colleagues. But Rosen said there's still a group over use of the benumb as conservation therapy. "Physicians are falling into two groups," he said. "One says, 'There was no survival advantage, I'd just gap until you have spreading and then retreat you.

That's not unreasonable'". Another heap "would say that there's potentially better quality of life during the space without disease," Rosen said. "But the psychological benefits from not having any documentation of disease are hard to measure".

In a comment accompanying the set forth in The Lancet, Dr Jonathan Friedberg, of the hematology and oncology frontier at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY, wrote that "an opinion of cost-effectiveness would be very helpful. In an date of increased health-care costs, what benefit is necessary to justify the set 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' disclosure that maintenance therapy with the drug should be prescribed for all people with follicular lymphoma who are initially treated with rituximab with an increment of chemotherapy v8 - energize price. "However, contribution is an option," Friedberg said, adding that "the investigators are to be congratulated for this leading contribution and are strongly encouraged to prolong follow-up of these patients to answer the questions that remain".