FDA Year in Review (and more)

The Lymphoma Research Foundation has published its FDA Year in Review, in which they discuss the actions taken by the Food and Drug Administration during 2008 that were related to Lymphoma treatments. Much of the relevent stuff has already been discussed here in the blog over the last few months, though it was interesting to see it all in one place. I'd say it was a good year for Lymphoma treatments, with the FDA taking 8 actions. (Consider that figure over 5 or 10 years, and what kinds of options that gives to Lymphoma patients of all types.)


What intrigued me most was the approval of Treanda as a treatment for people who tried Rituxin but didn't get a response, or who had a response that lasted for less than 6 months. I wrote about Treanda recently -- a trial that was reported on at the ASH (American Society of Hematology) conference showed that Treanda (the trade name for Bendamustine) showed about the same response rate as the R-CHOP chemotherapy regiment, but with seemingly much less toxicity. This is, of course, the kind of thing we're looking for (apart from an outright cure) -- treatments that are more effective, but less toxic.


But here's what I find more interesting -- the Yale Med School has been participating in the Treanda trial. Much of the clinical trial work that the researchers at Yale do is in Stem Cell Transplants, but someone there is doing work with Treanda (I'm not sure who's leading the trial). I think Treanda is a really intriguing option, and it's nice to know that there's someone who's only 10 minutes away who has first-hand experience with it. Something to keep in mind.


But here's the really interesting thing, since we're talking about Yale connections: Isabel has been organizing volunteers to help with the school play, and she heard from one parent who's an MD, who said she couldn't help for one particular day, and neither could her husband, because "he's on call that day for the oncology/hematology unit at Yale."


Oncology/Hematology at Yale?


Well, it turns out he's a department chair at Yale Med School, and directs the lab that evaluates biopsies to determine if they have blood cancers. In other words, it's pretty likely he saw my biopsied lymph node a year ago. Husband and wife met when one of her patients had an NHL type that was hard to diagnose, and he diagnosed it.


Isabel told Mrs. Dr. S (as I'll call her) about my NHL, and she wrote back and said we were in excellent hands with Dr. C, the lymphoma specialist I saw at Yale. We saw her after school a few days ago, and she was very encouraging. She told us that Mr. Dr. S recommends a particular NHL specialist at Dana-Farber in Boston, should we ever need or want an opinion outside of the Yale universe. She also reminded us that Follicular NHL is often an extremely long-term thing; Mr. Dr. S has a patient who has had fNHL for 30 years. He comes up from Bermuda once a year for a CT scan and to see a show on Broadway, then flies back home.


It's nice to have these Yale connections, and having Mr. and Mrs. Dr. S as acquantences is pretty cool, especially if they're going to keep giving me (1) names of specialists I can see, and (2) happy stories about 30 year fNHL survivors.