Hello, My husband (27 years) has been diagnosticated with CML on the 9th April. He started with Tasigna (600mg/day) on the 24 April but after 2 weeks he had to stop it because the platelets were very low. He started again after 3 weeks stop (on the 30 May) . My question is regarding the 3 months marrow biopsy. our doctor says that the biopsy should be done 3 months after the revival of Tasigna, which means at the end of August. We have consulted a second doctor who told us that the biopsy should be done at 3 months (even if my husband has stopped drugs for 3 weeks), which mean end of July. If there is somebody who was in this situation, could you please share your experience with us? Many many many thanks in advance P.S. Please accept my appologizes for my bad English.
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Why are they having to do a bone marrow biopsy at all? Doesn't the hospital he's treated at have the facilities (or access to them) to do the full blood counts and including PCR and Bcr-Abl transcripts?
hi, i'm brazilian and i can understand your english :)
your husband's doctor is right. the time to measure cytogenetic and molecular response is 3 months after start therapy. it's not common nowadays to have a bone marrow aspiration at 3 months now and doctors in many countries just run a pcr at 3 months and just check the marrow if they want to see if there's some problem. I had BMA at 3, 6 and 12 months marks because my doctor's follow those guidelines.
good luck to you!
hi, there,
I did not have any biopsy after the initial diagnosis. As the others said, nowadays, they just do the blood test (pcr). Its not necessary to done bone marrow biopsy, because whatever the result come out is, you will continue to take TKIs for a long time, unless they suspect a mutation which is highly unlikely at 3 months time.
William