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Thanks for that link, Paul. Here is the quote from the article about the cyclosporine (CsA) taper:
"Relapse occurs in up to 30% to 35% of patients when CsA is withdrawn at six months. A more prolonged course of CsA with a later slow tapering of the drug reduces the relapse risk to around 13% to 16%. About a third of patients are CsA-dependent and require a small dose long term."
I'm having a bit of a hard time interpreting what they're saying, though. The first two sentences seem clear enough, but when they say that about a third of patients remain CsA-dependent long term, doesn't that mean that they would relapse no matter how long or slow the taper was? That number seems right in line with the 30-35% they cite initially as relapsing with a faster taper, so how does that get reduced to 13-16%?
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-Lisa, husband Ken age 60 dx SAA 7/04, dx hypo MDS 1/06 w/finding of trisomy 8; 2 ATGs, partial remission, still using cyclosporine
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