One more for trial people: what happened at the end of your trial?

[WriteItDown]

I'm curious as to how they ended your trial.  The trial my husband is on, if he's in the 80% that get the trial drug, and it works, he's supposed to be stopped at 24 weeks.  But he has an appointment at 24 weeks where they do a viral load test. So do they take blood and then just stop you?  Or do they give you more drugs and wait until the test results are in?  In other words, how exact is it?  Does a 24 week trial end at precisely 24 weeks?

[GreatBird]

On the boceprevir trial, they end exactly when they say they will according to the documents they give you at the beginning.

For those who ended at 28 weeks, that was it--and those people didn't know until they went to their appointment because they didn't know what arm they were on. They did EOT bloodwork and progressed to followup.

I'm not done yet, but since I'm going the full 48, I know exactly when I will end the trial.

[WriteItDown]

Thanks for that info.  I was hoping that was how they would do it, but I wondered. I'll bet you've got that end-of-48-weeks date circled on your calendar!

[GreatBird]

Totally. Ten days and counting. ;)

[WriteItDown]

Ten days!  Wow, that is so close, you must be very happy.  Congratulations on being almost down to single digits.

[newleaf09]

It was just like Great Bird said.  They took blood at 24 wks., which was used to provide the info for randomization for the rest of the trial.  When I went in at 28 wks. and gave the nurse my stupid bag of meds for her to check and refill she said, "I won't be giving these back" and handed me the usual blood tubes, which suddenly became my EOT sample tubes.  Unbelievably exhilarating, and like a great weight was lifted.  I was so hopeful that I'd get out at 28 that I took my stuff in a plastic garbage bag instead of my back pack.  Of course I would have liked to know in advance, but it was just hand back the drugs, finish the visit and don't look back.    It was summer and the EOT platelet sample clotted but it did not even matter, since no matter how low they were they could only get better off the drugs and no rescue needed any more.

[WriteItDown]

That's a lovely story.  I'll bet you never thought the words "I won't be giving these back" could sound so sweet.  I'm going to hope for just the same to happen to my husband.