Monday, May 21, 2012

Good news on Ibrutinib

The day has slipped away and I am flying home ridiculously early tomorrow morning for a quick visit to the kids and the cat, before returning here for another two weekly checkups

So I will be brief, but  Ipromised an update.

The magic keeps happening.

My subjective feel that my nodes were shrinking was confirmed by the exam today. Really no nodes bigger than 1 x 1 cm. That is amazing after only two weeks of ibrutinib. Sore were 5 x3 a few weeks ago.

Lab showed a normal WBC and ALC so I did not get the big bump up that many see in other cohorts, but that might be because of the ofatumumub. It hangs around for a long time and may be preying on those hapless lymphocytes unprotected by the "microenvironment" when floating in my blood stream. No-one seems worried, so I won't either.A rise in ALC doesn't seem to predict response

Platelets remain above 400,000.  My ITP is in deep retreat.

The only fly in the ointment is that my Hgb has drifted down a bit to 12.9 which is the lowest it has been in years. BTK is found in reticulocytes, but my retic count was good. Ofatumumab can occasionally cause anemia. I will watch the trend. In blood tests and stocks, it's the trend that counts.

Gotta crash. More from SoCal soon.

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad to hear the exciting
news. Any thoughts on the future of Ibrutinib for a possible long term control of CLL or is it still too early for the experts to have formulated any thoughts this way yet?

Tom B

May 23, 2012 at 4:09 PM  
Blogger Dragon Slayer said...

Welcome home

May 23, 2012 at 6:51 PM  
Blogger Dragon Slayer said...

Welcome home

May 23, 2012 at 6:52 PM  
Blogger Dragon Slayer said...

Welcome home

May 23, 2012 at 6:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Brian .. I was told by the NIH doc that Hgb could go down as much as two point but should come back up. Just saying .. Love your blog and all the info as you are about two weeks (+O) ahead of my mono therapy. In my 10th day and all is well.

Aloha
Lynn

May 28, 2012 at 12:39 PM  

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