study program

Hi everyone, Giving updates as promised>>>>>>>>>>.
I just got back from Duke University  and did the initial intake interview. for a study program... Blood test,  Chest EXay,  Urinalisys, EKG, and Physical... Spoke with April and she will be contacting me within a week or 2 to see if I have been accepted... a new study with a pump that dispenses the Inferon in constant smaller doses.. Instead of a weekly shot. But still taking the Riba.
Okay feeling a bit drained now.
Happy Health all
Pat

[newleaf09]

Sounds pretty interesting; wonder what the philosophy behind the study is.  I thought pegylation made the dose if IFN stay pretty steady for a week, but perhaps there are times when it gets pretty high, thus leading to more SX?  Please let us know if they explain their rationale for the pump study in the paperwork.

[RonniePATWebb]

That is exactly it.  They would like to see if a steady stream in a lower dose would have as many SX as once a week shots are apparently producing.

[Bill1954]

Newleaf;

I think the trial that Ronnie Pat Webb is probably discussing is Medtronic’s COPE-HCV study. I believe they are testing an insulin-like pump using Intron-A (old non-Peg formula) against the current standard of care. It’ll be interesting to see if this offers any additional benefits.

http://wwwp.medtronic.com/Newsroom/NewsReleaseDetails.do?itemId=1251836481767&lang=en_US

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00919633?term=medtronics+interferon&rank=1


RonniePatWebb;

Best of luck to you—

Bill

[Andiamo1]

http://jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/full/19/5/1312/FIG1

You can see from this chart that peg interferon level  at 180mg is very consistent over 7 days, so I am not sure what they are hoping to achieve.  Only the trial definition can explain it.  I can only guess that they hope to minimize the trough, but you can see from the chart, there isn't much of a trough taking the shot every 7 days.

[IAmTheWalrus]

Maybe "no troughs" will translate into better response and "no peaks" will translate into fewer SX....just thinking.

Brent