April 2

I was going to post something yesterday, but I didn't want to either (1) have what I said be misconstrued as an April Fool's joke, or (2) have to come up with a really good April Fool's joke on my own, which I just don't have the energy or the time for these days.

So you'll just have to get a straight and serious news report from me instead.

I have been extoling the virtues of RadioImmunoTherapy for almost two years now, and more great news keeps coming in.

The latest is that Bexxar (one type of RIT, along with Zevalin) is safe when used a second time. There had been some speculation that Bexxar might have long-term negative effects on bone marrow that would be even greater if used more than once. However, this does not seem to be the case. (I can't get a link to the article to work, so you'll have to take my word for it.)

This is important because many doctors are reluctant to try RIT on their patients, and those who are willing will sometimes hold off on using it until other treatments have failed, because they think it can't be used more than once.

This is unfortunate, because research shows that RIT is more effective for lots of patients when it is used early on in the course of treatment.

There's a very nice review of RIT and its effectiveness on Follicular NHL from the January issue of Community Oncology, called "Radioimmunotherapy: A promising treatment strategy for follicular lymphoma." It includes a nice summary of recent research on how well RIT works, including studies that show it works well early on, and in combination with more traditional chemotherapies.

No joke.