Clinical Trial R Us

We thought we’d give you an update on the latest developments on the next treatment protocol for Kim. In our last post we had mentioned the possibility [and likelihood] of entering a clinical trial through M. D. Anderson.

Things have progressed more quickly than we thought they would. Kim called the Research Assistant [Michiko is her name] and left voicemail over this past weekend. Michiko called her back Monday and, before we knew it, we had appointments with her and Dr. Yao ON TUESDAY JUNE 9, as in the day before yesterday!

So we hit the road to Houston again this week and had a couple of hours with her and then a lengthy visit with Dr. Yao about the plusses and minuses of the trial and exactly what the parameters were for getting in and getting out of it. Getting in was not a problem because of Kim's qualification for it, as I described in the last post. Getting out is easy too. Dr. Yao will monitor the results of all the scans as he already does. There will be more scans and tests and more eyes will look at it all. Everything, it appears, starting with the blood work, gets sent to Germany for perusal by doctors there, who evidently oversee the research worldwide. If, at any time Dr. Yao thinks there is growth that needs further [or different] treatment, he will pull her from the trial and pursue other treatment.

For you medical types and Wikipedia researchers, the drug being researched is called Lanreotide Autogel, and it has been an effective treatment for a condition known as acromegaly—a disorder of growth hormones resulting from an over-active pituitary gland. TMI? The hope is that this drug will also be effective in retarding the growth endocrine tumors like the carciniods in Kim’s liver. That’s the long and short of it.

We have a tentative M. D. Anderson schedule for the rest of the year. We return on August 24 for multiple scans and then will go pretty-much every 28 days, usually around the middle of the month. Some of those trips are just to get the shot [with a 50/50 chance of it being the drug or a placebo]. Every 90 days there will be CT scans and meetings with Dr. Yao. So there you have it.

We would appreciate your continued thoughts and prayers. I have a good number of you in my “spam” email to tell you there has been a new post. For those of you who want notification, you ARE on the list if you got email notification of this posting. If you got to this blog without an email from me and want one, just send your email address to jrlove@gmail.com and tell me you want on the spam notification of new blog posts. If you got an email about the blog and want off the list, just send me that request as well.

Thanks for coming along with us…