Good Bexxar News

This year's American Society of Hematology (ASH) Conference takes place in a week or so, and they've already put up abstracts for the presentations on research for various blood disorders. I'm sifting through it all, and I'll try to comment on some of the more interesting ones. I may end up waiting until after the conference; that's when drug companies start putting out press releases, and medical web sites start commenting on important items from the conference. All of that helps put it in perspective.


But there are a few really good ones that are worth posting now, inlcuding this one: Since I've been giving Bexxar some love lately, it's nice to see positive results.


Here's the abstract from the ASH conference web site. The presentation is called "Tositumomab and Iodine I-131 Tositumomab for Previously Untreated, Advanced-Stage, Follicular Lymphoma: Median 10 Year Follow-up Results," and it discusses how well a group of Bexxar patients from 1996 to 2009 have been doing.


Very encouraging results. A total of 76 patients (all but one had Follicular NHL) were given Bexxar. 97% of the patients achieved a response, with 75% achieving a complete response (all traces of the lymphoma were wiped out by the Bexxar). Patients had been given Bexxar anywhere from 1 to 12 years before the results were measured, with a median of 10 years (that is, half had taken it more than 10 years ago, and half less than 10 years ago).

The median duration response was 6 years (half of the patients didn't get worse after that time). 40% of patients were progression-free after 10 years. For that 75% who had a complete response, the median progression-free state was almost 11 years.


Pretty good numbers, I'd say; lots of patients have done very well over the long term with Bexxar. The study isn't perfect (there's a pretty wide range of years involved, making it harder to really measure long-term impact; it's a single-arm study, which means they didn't compare Bexxar with some other treatment in the same study), but it's encouraging.


More evidence for people to consider RadioImmunoTherapy, if nothing else.