Changing The Way We Think
Each one of us is unique in every way, but I think most of us have one thing in common – we want the best "deal" when we make purchases. That doesn't necessarily mean the cheapest price. It means we want the best value for the money we spend.
Few of us buy the first car we look at and we certainly don't worry about offending the salesman by saying, "I'll think about it" before we walk out of the dealership. Even fewer of us marries the first person we date! Why, then, do most of us, myself included, accept the first treatment plan offered by the first doctor we see? We are, after all, purchasing medical services, even if our insurance companies are footing the bills - and what could be more important than purchasing the best treatment to save our own lives?
RIT may be your best treatment, but you'll never know until you find out from a doctor who is comfortable and familiar with RIT and who can make that determination. Unfortunately, RIT has been slow to gain widespread acceptance in the medical community for a variety of reasons. In 2005, only about 5% of the eligible lymphoma population got it. And in 2006, that percentage slipped to about 4%. In other words, there are somewhere between 36,000 and 38,000 patients per year who could potentially benefit from RIT but who aren't.
There are a variety of reasons that RIT has been so underutilized, but one of the major factors seems to be that oncologists used to giving chemotherapy and Rituxan have yet to incorporate it in the smorgasbord of treatment options, and patients aren't sure how to get it. Additionally, Mort and I have been dismayed to hear from many of you who have asked about RIT and been given inaccurate information.
Both Bexxar and Zevalin are approved for use in patients with low-grade follicular NHL or transformed B-cell NHL after one type of chemotherapy or chemotherapy plus Rituxan or plain Rituxan has failed. In other words, RIT is approved for use as the second option, and studies have shown that it is more effective when used earlier in treatment rather than after several types of chemo have failed.
So what do you do if you think you may be eligible for RIT? First, we need to change the way we think about our treatment. We're accustomed to going to an oncologist for cancer treatment. RIT requires that we see a nuclear medicine physician or a radiation oncologist, doctors whom very few of us would think to call. In fact, it wasn't until very recently that I learned that patients could, in fact, initiate their own appointment with a nuclear medicine physician or radiation oncologist - without a referral from an oncologist.
If you think you may be eligible for RIT, I would encourage you to contact the following:
For Bexxar Information: 1-887-4-BEXXAR (1-877-423-9927)
For Zevalin Information: 1-866-298-8433
Both of these are toll-free numbers, and you will talk with a live person who will help you find the treatment center nearest you. At that center, you'll talk with a coordinator who can answer your questions and guide you through the process.
You may or may not find that RIT is right for you, but at least you will have "shopped and compared," just as we do when we make any other purchase. And isn't our medical treatment the most important purchase we'll ever make?
Betsy