Rituxan Levels & Depletion

Anonymous
April 11, 2008 at 9:01 pm

I was curious to see what the levels of Rituxan are in our systems, knowing from various publications what the half-life is for Rituxan. I took the infusion schedules for both Norb and I, and I plotted the two of them.
– Norb had/is having two series of infusions spread 6 months apart. Each infusion is 375 mg/sq m and they are 1 per week for 4 weeks for each series.
– I had one series, but now I am having 3 maintenance infusions spread each a month apart.
– I used 21 days as the half-life for Rituxan whereas literature talks about 19 to 22 days.
– The full horizontal scale represents 52 weeks
Here are the results

[IMG]http://www.ourbluemarble.us/forum/NorbRituxan.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.ourbluemarble.us/forum/AndrewRituxan.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/6448/allaugrituxanlevelmi7ut5.jpg[/IMG]

Of course, we do not know whether this makes a difference in efficacy. It probably depends on the individual circumstances.
One of the immediate take-aways is that you can see why they suggest 6 months between infusion series. Otherwise the depletion would be complete.
Comments are welcome. Allaug, I can add yours too if you want. I just need to know the dates of your infusions and whether they are all 375 mg/sq m.
Andrew