You are here

Gleevec trough level taken....results 1685

Hello all.  I just got my gleevec trough level back from ARUP labs.  It is my understanding that they are the only lab in the United States that does the test.  You have your blood drawn basically 23 plus hours before you take your next dose....  So I got my trough levels back and they are quite high.  The norm for CML patients is thought to be a trough level of 1000.  The situation is that if you drop down to 300 mg of Gleevec, the trough drop is probably not linear.  So I could drop below the treatment level of 1000.  This trough level is not “hard science” but has been bandied about enough to cause ARUP to be running a test for it.  

Please tell me if any of you run your trough levels.  

 

Never even heard of this - but it is interesting.  As with everything else, we are all different with different TKI threshold levels.  I started on full dose (600 mg per day) Tasigna in Oct 2016 and reduced to 450, then 300, then 150 all within first 9 months of treatment due to several rare but serious side effects.  I have been PCR <.003% for 16+ months, so I guess my trough level is high enough to maintain on this low once a day dose.  Half-life of Gleevec and Tasigna are similar, but probably long enough to maintain as long as you don't miss a day.  Gleevec also not as strong as  Tasigna, so this might matter.

Am sure Scuba will have the science or at least a good guess at it. Regardless, if you are stable MMR or better, there is little risk to trying dose reduction - see DESTINY trials.