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Old Wed Dec 8, 2010, 07:57 PM
Paolo D. Paolo D. is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: trieste, italy
Posts: 4
Question When to stop Vidaza?

Hello everybody, I'm a new member from Italy and I'm not an expert of medical stuff, so please apologize my grammar mistakes and medical inaccuracies.

My mother (70yrs) was diagnosed with AREB-2 (15-20% blasts) in March 2010, was given a 30% chance to survive over 2010, and began Vidaza in May 2010.

Throughout the treatment, she has been always low on Hgb (highest 10.5 after transfusion, lowest 7), low on platelets (40-60k), low on Wbc and Rbc (despite ongoing supportive treatment with Granocyte and Eprex). She has always been very weak, covered with bruises all around her body, prone to infections, and has suffered severe Vidaza’s side-effects on the site of injections (bruise, rush, swelling and much pain on her arms).

After the 4th cycle she had a BMB which showed a little improvement (blasts 15%), and after the 6th cycle a further BMB showed the same situation as after the 4th cycle.

Now doctors say they are going to run the last cycle (the 8th) in December (next Monday), and then stop Vidaza for a long while. They say they want to see how my mother “behaves” without Vidaza, just with supportive treatment (transfusions etc) when needed. If things go bad (i.e. acute leukaemia) they will treat it accordingly (other chemio?); if things remain stable for something like one year, they will re-consider another go with Vidaza.

After this long (I’m sorry) introduction, my questions are:
1) when can you say that Vidaza is “not working”? (my mother’s marrow is the same as before starting Vidaza, she’s still transfusion-dependant: is that enough to quit Vidaza like that?)
2) has anyone heard of a similar use (stop & see in one year) of Vidaza, or should I fear that doctors have other reasons to suggest this approach? (I know how expensive Vidaza is, and in Italy it is supplied for free by national health system)
3) in case I convince myself and the doctors to keep on going with Vidaza, does anyone have any hint to ease the pain on the site of injections? (doctors say that Vidaza can be injected only on arms or legs: they once tried with legs, and it was even worse than on arms)

Any answer, suggestion or just sharing of experience will be, of course, very welcome by a son who would try everything to help his mother.
Thanks in advance,
Paolo
__________________
Paolo, my mother aged 70 diagnosed AREB-2 in March 2010, currently (Dec 2010) on Vidaza
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