treanda and beyond

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mariettabrill <mbrill100@...> :"Fred - Do you mind sharing some other information about your treatment?"_____________________________________________________I had Bendamustine in 2002 in Germany, 6-cycles at 100mg/m2.I was given pre-meds for nausea and experienced no severe problemsor "apparent" side-effects; except that by the 4th cycle I was feelingmore "unwell" and brain-fog and extra fatigue. I was urged to completethe 6-cycles which I did.Remission lasted about 2 years, or until Jan.2005 when WBC went above 11.WBC thereafter was very slowly going up, or stable, until July-Sept.2008 whenWBC doubled and neutrophils seemed to decline to around 0.5.I convinced my hematologist here in New York to try Treanda (Bendamustine), but as Low-Dose at 35mg/Mm2 plus SQ injections of "low-dose" rituxan.After a rash appeared, the rituxan was stopped; and we bumped up the Treanda dosageto 75mg/m2 since the lymph nodes were not diminishing (although the low-dose reducedthe WBC to "normal" after 1 month).I wanted to stop the Treanda after 4 cycles because I had had experienced extremefatigue and brain-fog with the previous 6-cycles of Bendmustine---besides, there wasno further improvement reducing the Lymph nodes, and the WBC was normal & steadyeven after 1-cycle of the very low-dose. (Besides, my hematologist for personal reasons hadto take a leave of absence for 6-months and I was not under his supervision after the4th cycle).I might point out, that I've had 3 cycles of PCR this past year which had no lasting effect,and was stoppedd. I have since enrolled in Dr. Furman's clinical trials and for the past3 months have been on CAL-101.CAL-101 is easy to take and reduced the size of enlarged pelvic-abdominal nodessignificantly and other palpable nodes have diminished (but not entirely disappeared).It was a very impressive beginning.....However, WBC is now quite high at over 200k, and my HgL seems to be plummeting...perhaps due to past Bendamustine destruction of bone-marrow?, or who knows....maybe, just another kind of "displacement" of CLL from nodes to blood to marrow?I have felt weak and fatigued over the past 6-8 weeks, but for past 5 daysI feel ok despite the low HgL ......I am under watchful care of Dr. Furman and follow closely what he says!

Fredrich CANTOR (NYC)male, now 65, dx 1998 CLL