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Hydrea question

This topic has 5 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 18 years, 4 months ago by PAG2005.

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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December 11, 2005 at 7:00 pm #10623

Angie W.
Member

My dad has been on Hydrea since Friday morning. He is to go back to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon to ‘see if it has started working’. Would we be able to see changes that soon? Would this just decrease his WBC or also platelets? What about blasts?

One other Rx question…would the ‘stronger oral chemo medicine’ the doctor mentioned to him be Vidaza? The doctor didn’t say what it would be and my dad didn’t ask.

Thanks,
Angie

December 11, 2005 at 7:01 pm #10624

Angie W.
Member

Forgot to mention that his WBC is currently 79,000 (and 5 weeks ago had been 26,000). If that is relative to a response from Hydrea.

December 11, 2005 at 8:50 pm #10625

Harold
Member

Angie, Hydrea primarily decreases WBCs and less often affects RBCs and platelets. I don’t think Hydrea will have any affect on blasts. You can see a decrease in WBC in response to Hydrea in a matter of days (within a week) but it can also take longer. Vidaza is an injection (subcutaneous) so this is probably not the “oral” chemo the doctor was thinking about.

December 11, 2005 at 10:17 pm #10626

Suzanne
Member

the oral one might be Zarnestra. It is the only other pill chemo I know about. It has been used for older patients who for one reason or another were not up to heavy chemo. with about a 30% success rate. It was supmitted for fast track approval but fDA required the pahse 3 studies.I was told for the same reasons they are being cautious about the revlimid approval ( the couple of drugs that hit the news causing problems after they were approved)

December 14, 2005 at 3:14 am #10627

Angie W.
Member

Dad’s WBC today was 95,000. I had been given some wrong info earlier… five weeks ago they were 2,000. Then last Thursday 79,000.

He has been taking 2 pills twice a day. Doctor changed today to 8 pills a day (not sure how many and how often…).

More bloodwork on Friday.

If the Hydrea is going to do ANYTHING, would we see something within a week, especially with increased dosage.

I thought the counts today would be a tiny bit lower. Not a huge amount higher.

It’s all happening very quickly.

December 14, 2005 at 7:11 am #10628

PAG2005
Member

Hi Angie,

My mom was diagnosed with AML with WBC of over 200,000. They immediately gave her hydrea to try to reduce the wbc or at least keep it from going higher until she was tested to see if she was eligible for chemo. Her WBC did go down but I don’t know by how much before she started chemo. I believe it can stabilize the wbc or bring it down but I’m not sure for how long. I think with the increase in dosage you should be able to see difference within a week. Pat
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