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Preganant while Spouse on Glivec

Hi, I wondered if anyone had any information on pregancy success rates when the Man (me) is on Glivec? Has there been any experience of issues or complications. My wife is healthy and I am doing well (lots of zeros) but clearly we would be concerned about any abnormalites that might arise as a result of Glivec.  I am on the 400mg per day dose. Any info would be greatly appreciated. 

Also I haven't been to the site in ages and just wanted to say how nice the new look is and how easy it is to use.

Thanks

Bill 

Hi Bill-

Am going through early stages of fertility treatment at the mo, and for now my fertility consultant has requested that we don't have unprotected sex as he want's to investigate the possibilities of conceiving while the man (me!) is on 400g dasatanib. I'll let you know what he says at our next meeting in June.

 

Best-

 

Adam

The advice I originally got when started on Glivec was to not to try for more children as there wasn't any evidence it was safe, and as we already had a beuatiful boy it wasn't top of our priorities

However that advice changed about 18 months ago, and as i had been close to 3 log reduction for a while the doctors said there shouldn't be any problems.

And I am happy to announce that we are expecting our 2nd child in September, which we are over the moon with :)

From what I understand it is not recommnded for women on Glevec to concieve as htere can be complications.

Hope that helps

Rob - about to be a dad again at 40 :)

Hi Rob-

That's really lovely news for you. To be honest this is the part of CML that is getting me down at the moment- me and my wife had been trying for a year or so when I was diagnosed, and of course it's the one thing in the world we most desperately want.

We are currently looking at IVF with the stored sample I gave before I started chemo, but it would make things a lot easier on us if we were still allowed, or felt it was okay, to try to conceive naturally at the same time.

If you don't mind discussing such things, can I just check with you whether you are on Imatinib or Dasatinib? And do you have any evidence that this effected the level of your fertility? As I am new to this site, and the lingo of CML, can I also ask you what '3 log reduction' means- I presume it's to do with the success of your treatment in reducing or erradicating the Philadelphia Chromosome...

Thanks and best wishes-

 

Adam

Adam - no problem at all

Currently on 400mg Imatinib, for last 3 years curenty at 0.125PCR

I have no evidence at all, we did struggle to concieve for both children taking about 12 months each time, and to be honest we where thinking it was not going to happen 2nd time round, maybe that helped...

3 log reduction - from the FAQ http://www.cmlsupport.org.uk/faq_pcrresults

"Major molecular response (MMR) which is when there has been a 3 log or more reduction in BCR-ABL transcripts from PCR compared to diagnosis values (1000-fold reduction). "

and

"A 3 log reduction or major molecular remission (MMR) by PCR may be desirable because from the Glivec Phase III trials, it was found that those patients who had this low level of disease had 100% progression-free survival 2 years after start of Glivec therapy."
 

Which is a good thing and means you have a lot less CML than before, so for me it will be 0.07  and I have in the past got close at 0.08 but gone up slightly but not a major cause for concern...

Rob

that I got my advice from the Doctors at the Hammersmith and can pass on contact details if needs be

email me at robmar@microsoft.com

also when i told them of our good news, i asked if there was anything extra we needed to do, think about, tests etc and they said nothing it should be as normal.

Our first child was a rather complicated affair with an emergency cesarian due to various issues, but so far those have not come back and there is no indication of any problems.

Rob

Have read this forum since diagnosis (Nov 2007). Fertility issues were one of the things that were important to me and my wife at that time, so thought i'd chip-in with our experiences as it might help.

I'm being treated at Hammersmith and consultants there indicated they were happy for us to try for children - I was on Imatinib 400mg. From my own reading, it implied that the exposure to the hydroxyurea which I took in the first few weeks had more potential to cause problems than the Imatinib. My consultant arranged for me to have an apppointment with the fertility doc at Hammersmith who indicated he knew of no problems with Imatinib where the father was taking it. He did say there was a risk fathering a child on any medication, and that as there was little/no data specifically on Imatinib, in his opinion this was unquantifiably small.

Everything went fine and we had a healthy son Oct 2009. We did get some additional monitoring (nuchal scan) on the NHS thanks to my consultant writing a letter.

Anyway, that's our experience - hope that helps. My last PCR was 0.2% - been a bit of a slow responder and have just increased to Imatinib 600mg , but almost at the magical 0.1!

Hi Bill,

during the pre-human clinical trials it was found that IM could cause foetal abnormalities during the first trimester, so this is why woman only are not advised to get pregnant whilst taking IM. However many have and have gone on to produce healthy babies. It might have been that the dosages in the animal trials where much higher than would be needed in humans.

However there is no evidence to say that IM affects human sperm in any detrimental way. I have not heard of men being advised that they cannot father children when taking IM and over the years quite a few have done so ;o)

Hope this helps,

Sandy