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[Trey]

While it has often been repeated that the optimal Gleevec blood levels should be about 1000ng/ml (1.7 mM), there is a recent report that suggests that levels roughly half that amount (.95 mM) are acceptable. But it also concludes that there is considerable variability among patients.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/c41090t1047637l5/

[Tedsey]

Thanks for posting this link.  I have been thinking a lot and read a little about this (for obvious reasons--low ANC and PLT).  One of the first things the new onc said yesterday was to order a kit from Novartis.  I go for my 2nd BMB/A May 21st (the onc does it and her nurse will draw my blood from now on--so different than the legion of phlebotomists and their booths, cavernous waiting room, and 6+ hour waits).  They will do the Gleevec level test then.  We will see how it turns out.  She said a lower dose of G may help if we can do it.  It is also nice to be treated like an adult instead of a child.  Smaller office is a lot easier on my psyche than large overburdened cancer center.  Instead of telling me that there will never be a cure upon first meeting, (like last onc), the new onc actually said that she would expect that I would be near or at a cytogenic response after this BMB, (keeping fingers crossed).  Such a big difference than I am doing "poorly".  She said she didn't see anything unusual in my records.  However, she did reveal that the university cancer center I went to used their own standards and numbers.  Thus, I have to start all over again.  That was some good information though.