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on 800mg imatinib

i was recently put on 800mg of imatinib and wainting for another cystogenetic test to se if my ph cromosone is gone and also 2 other altered chromoson get handled , iguess more than anything my mind is the one wondering , if imatinib dosent handle it do i switch to dissatinib , been on gleevec 7 months but have not eliminated cromosones , hematological response is good and has stayed good wonder if if takes time ,it gets frustrating some times ,but my goal is to survive this .

Dear Jose,
I am hopeful that 800mg will mean that you see evidence of a cytogenetic response which means that the cells that are positive to PH chromosome will start to reduce. If this does not happen.. and you might need to wait some months... then you might need to have further tests to see if you have an imatinib resistant mutation or some other reason for your 'sub-optimal'response. It might be that you do not hold a consistantly high enough level of imatinib in you blood.This varies from individual to individual and can be for a number of reasons. Taking the drug regularly (every day)is important. Plasma trough level testing would identify if your levels are not high enough. You should have >1000 ng per ml. Take a look at the red box on the right side of this page -'EUTOS'- which will give you some information.

If you do not respond to imatinib then you could try either dasatinib or nilotinib. Both are 2nd generation TKI's and work well.
You have not been taking imatinib for very long (7 months) so you need to be patient... I know that is hard ;o)

Hopefully you will see a cytogenetic response to 800mg.

Sandy

thank you sandy for this information , i will be more patient, hopefully next test will be better .

Hi
Some patients don't respond well to Gleevec & are switched to dasatinib. There's also another med out these days- but I'm not too sure of the name (it begins with the letter "N"). My son's doctor has said that a full response may take up to 18 months. If the side effects are very bad on 800mg (as they were for my son), you might inquire about changing meds. From what I've learned so far, CML patients are not all in the same place with this disease. There are higher and lower ends of risk. Where you fall on the risk scale determines which treatment option is most appropriate for you. Best wishes and good luck with treatment.
Regards,
Tracey