1. Can anyone point me towards a study of Gleevec on other types of cancer other than chronic myeloid leukemia. Or is the whole point that this sort of drug is supposed to be targeted at only chronic myeloid leukemia?

Posted at 2:26PM on Jun 8th 2006 by Evan Adams

2. Excellent question!

Gleevec is by far the most successful targeted drug and is vastly superior to other drugs in the treatment of CML (Blood. 2004 Jan 25;103(2):451-5). Non-solid cancers are intrinsically sensitive to most any anticancer drug. But, is this drug supposed to be targeted at only CML? Besides CML, a rare type of solid abdominal cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) is commonly associated with mutations in a gene called KIT. The oncogene produces a protein called "kit" that like the Bcr-Abl protein in CML, is inhibitied by Gleevec. Gleevec shrinks many GIST tumors. It has demonstrated significant clinical utility in the treatment of GIST (Lancet: 2004 Sep 25;364(9440):1127-34). However, as with CML, resistant cells evolve and the disease progresses. The development of drug resistance to Gleevec in CML and GIST is not unique. Resistance has been described to virtually every anticancer agent examined.

But, back to the original question. Is Gleevec supposed to be targeted at only CML (and GIST)? Unfortunately, the introduction of Gleevec and the other new "targeted" drugs has not been accompanied by specific predictive tests allowing for a rational and economical use of the drugs. Given the technical and conceptual advantages of Cell Culture Drug Resistance Tests (CCDRTs) together with their performance and the modest efficicay of therapy prediction on analysis of genome expression, there is reason for a renewal in the interest for CCDRTs for optimized use of medical treatment of malignant disease.

Posted at 9:21PM on Jun 8th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski

3. Test Identifies Patients who Benefit from Targeted Cancer Drugs

Clinical study results published at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) show that a new laboratory test has accurately identified patients who would benefit from treatment with the molecularly-targeted anti-cancer therapies gefitinib (Iressa) and erlotinib (Tarceva).

The new test, called EGFRx (TM), predicted accurately for the survival of patients treated with the targeted drugs. The finding is important because the EGFRx (TM) test, which can also be applied to many emerging targeted cancer drugs, could help solve the growing problem of knowing which patients should receive costly, new treatments that can have harmful side-effects and which work for some but not all cancer patients who receive them. The test can discriminate between the activity of different targeted drugs and identify situations in which it is advantageous to combine the targeted drugs with other types of cancer drugs

The new test relies upon what is called "Whole Cell Profiling" in which living tumor cells are removed from an individual cancer patient and exposed in the laboratory to the new drugs. A variety of metabolic and apoptotic measurements are then used to determine if a specific drug was successful at killing the patient's cancer cells. The whole cell profiling method differs from other tests in that it assesses the activity of a drug upon combined effect of all cellular processes, using combined metabolic and morphologic endpoints. Other tests, such as those which identify DNA or RNA sequences or expression of individual proteins often examine only one component of a much larger, interactive process.

The whole cell profiling method makes the statistically significant association between prospectively reported test results and patient survival. Using the EGFRx (TM) assay and the whole cell profiling method, can correlate test results which are obtained in the lab and reported to physicians prior to patient treatment, with significantly longer or shorter overall patient survival depending upon whether the drug was found to be effective or ineffective at killing the patient's tumor cells in the laboratory.

Posted at 3:16PM on Jun 10th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski

4. My husband was prescribed only Gleevec for ALL (acute lymphatic leukemia) with excellent results. He is in complete remission! I hope it helps others as well.

Posted at 12:33AM on Jun 12th 2006 by Suzanne Schuler

5. My mother was diagnosed with eosiniphilic leukemia a few weeks ago. She was started on Gleevec immediately. Her white cell count (eosiniphils)had gotten as high as 60,000. After about a week of taking Gleevec the count was reduced to 900. She tolerated the treatment extremely well.

Posted at 7:54AM on Jun 18th 2006 by AmStarr