What If...

Karen and I were talking last night about relapse. Obviously, I'm not even through treatment yet, so it's ridiculously premature to discuss, but you can't stop the mind from wandering through this territory. Hodgkins relapses, while rare, are pretty nasty from what I have seen. They typically involve stem cell therapy and can even relapse after that. I started asking myself whether I'd like 1 year of quality life or 2 years of treatments with no guarantee of survival. It's a logical thought in my mind. Treatment gives you no guarantee of a future. It's a bet on the future, whereas, living your life is pretty much a guarantee. Sell it all and enjoy! It's a bittersweet thought to be sure, but there is very little sweet about the idea of stem cell therapy.

Karen ran across an interesting clinical trial that has just received the fasttrack from the FDA. It seems to be targeted at people who relapsed after chemo and who either participated in or choose to refuse stem cell therapy.

BOTHELL, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar. 30, 2009-- Seattle Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq:SGEN) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted fast track designation to SGN-35 for the treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma. SGN-35, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), is in an ongoing pivotal trial under a Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) from the FDA for relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma.

This guy has been undergoing treatments after 2 relapses. I do not know what his outcome is, but he seems to be in pretty good spirits and the side effects based upon his comments appear to be minimal.