How long does RIT work?
A reader who took RIT asked how long it works. The answer is no one knows for sure. Certainly some statistics are available from clinical trials, but there are many people who have taken it who aren't included in those statistics and who are not tracked.
I can hardly contain my enthusiasm when I share with all of you that I spoke with someone night before last who has been in remission for 10 - yes 10 - years after RIT!!!!! She had been diagnosed in 1985, relapsed after five types of chemotherapy, and finally found an RIT clinical trial at Stanford in 1996. There has been no recurrence whatsoever. This makes my own remission of 4 years look pretty short!
Regardless of what type of treatment we had, no one, absolutely no one, can predict with 100% certainty how long it will work. What is known by the medical community is that radioimmunotherapy has been shown to work longer than chemotherapy, but RIT is relatively new. Phase I clinical trials started just 15 years ago and the first RIT drug was approved only 4 years ago. Those of us who have taken it are trailblazers, and as each year passes and more and more of us remain disease-free, we will give scientists the long term data they need.
All of us who have had cancer wish we could know for sure that our treatment will work "forever." Instead, cancer forces us to face our own mortality and leaves us learning to coexist with certain uncertainty, a subject which has filled volumes. There are many good books about the psychological aspect of survivorship, but I will end with a short quote from my own:
"Today, Alex and I are still the same people we were before cancer invaded our lives. Only now, cancer is part of who we are and we look at life through a different lens. Yes, cancer changed our view of the world. Staring at death gave us a heightened appreciation for life. It challenged us to live fully the life that we have and forced us to pay attention to the present moment, which is all we really have and all that really matters."
Betsy