One patient's experience with interferon

FDA Consumer, April, 1987 by Roger W. Miller

One Patient's Experience with Interferon Mark Fow, Ph.D., a toxicologist with FDA's Division of Epidemiology and Surveillance--the group that monitors adverse drug reactions--is a victim of hairy cell leukemia who was in the study of interferon treatment of the cancer. In this inverview with Roger W.

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Miller, director of FDA's Communications Staff, he tells of the experience: Q. When did you first learn that you had leukemia? A. It was diagnosed a little over a year ago, in December 1985. Q. What kind of treatment did you get first, or did you go right into this interferon program? A. I got blood transfusions. I was starting to bruise and bleed spontaneously. My white [blood] cell count was so low I got any infection that came along. I had been diagnosed at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. They recognized it right away. It's a rare disease with an incidence of about one in one million persons--200 cases a year in the U.S. They told me there were two treatments--the experimental one with interferon and the traditional splenectomy--removal of the spleen. Interferon sounded better to me. So when I got back here [to the Washington, D.C., area] ... I got into the NCI [National Cancer Institute] trial. It's a multi-center program; there are a number of trials around the country. Q. Do You get any side effects? A. Yes, I did. About two weeks into the treatment, I got a further depression of bone marrow, where the red and white cells and the platelets for clotting are produced. It put me in the hospital with fever. I had to have antibiotics; I needed more red blood cell transfusions and platelets. Q. Didn't you want to quit? A. Yes, at that point, I said, "This is no fun." But after about 10 days into the fever it stopped, and I started getting better. I came out of it a week or so later, and when everything seemed to stabilize I started again on interferon. Q. So what was the gap, a couple of weeks? A. Yes, I was off [interferon] for about two or three weeks, then restarted. From that point on it was steady progress. Q. What's steady progress? The red and white blood cell counts going up? A. Yes, I was getting counts three time a week, then two times ... now it's every two months. It took about four months. I noticed that the bruising stopped. I no longer got those colds and little fevers that would last for weeks. And I felt stronger. I could do things again. Before that i was too tired to do anything. Q. Did other patients in the trial have similar reactions? A. The NCI people indicated that many of their patients have a decline in marrow activity in the first month or so. And some of them do get pretty ill, the way I did. And there were a few deaths associated with the interferon treatment in its early stages. There are also some minor side effects. A little fever. some drowsiness early on. Q. What's your regimen now? A. I started with daily injections. After six months I went on to three times a week. That will continue indefinitely. Q. What's your prognosis? A. It looks good. We don't know what the long-term effects [of interferon] are; we don't know about long-term toxicity. I've had some minor disturbances of liver and kidney function. Interferon has been reported to affect cognitive function, problems in thinking, writing. I don't know if I'll come off the drug. Q. But it's a possibility? A. Yes, the truly complete response would be if all the hairy cells disappear and don't return. I don't know if there have been any cases like that. [Fow's bone marrow was 50 percent infiltrated with hairy cells; the latest count was 5 percent.]

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One patient's experience with interferon

FDA Consumer, April, 1987 by Roger W. Miller

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