I haven't posted for a while so I thought I would post a
short update on what is going on. The
good news is that this drug, which goes by 3 names, PCI-32765, Ibrutinib, and
finally Imbruvica, seems to be doing what it is supposed to do. My counts are all moving in the right
direction and my side effects have been minimal. I can't say that they are non-existent, but
they do seem to be manageable, and also transient. They seem to come and go, but mostly they
come and then disappear. I have monthly visits until April and then I go to
every 3 months.
The drug is made by a company called Pharmacyclics, but
because they needed funding, they partnered with Jannsen, (who is actually
owned by Johnson & Johnson). In
November the FDA approved Imbruvica for Mantle Cell Lymphoma, but for some
reason held back the approval for CLL.
The thinking was that they were waiting for some Clinical Trial data
that would be finalized in February. If
everything goes according to plan, it should be officially approved in February
for CLL.
As some of you remember, I am getting monthly infusions at
Moore's Cancer Center of IV immunoglobulins, or IVIG. I have been doing this every month since
November of 2007. Since I have a compromised
immune system, this monthly infusion helps protect me against common infections. I was recently told that in the near future
Medicare will no longer pay for Medical Center infused IVIG. It will have to be self administered at home. The problem is that at home you can't infuse
it as fast, so you have to have WEEKLY infusions that last 2 hours. I wonder how long it will be before we have
to perform open heart surgery on ourselves?
We continue to make plans (now that we can) and we will be
traveling quite a bit in the next 4 months.
Boring is good!
