When Wendy Harpham was diagnosed in 1990, she began treatment with what was then the standard protocol, but by her second recurrence she moved to a clinical trial for IDEC C2B8, the research name for the drug later approved as Rituxan in 1997. In each case she either had a complete response, meaning disappearance of disease for at least three months, or a partial response, indicating a decrease in tumor size of at least 30 percent. [Outside of clinical trials, a partial response is defined as a reduction in tumor size of at least 50 percent.] Here is a rundown of Wendy’s treatments over the past two decades. 

November 1990: DIAGNOSIS
[Stage 3 indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma]

• >Treated with ProMACE-MOPP chemotherapy [cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, etoposide, mechlor-ethamine, vincristine, prednisone, procarbazine and methotrexate with leucovorin rescue]
  >Complete response

• JUNE 1992: RECURRENCE

• >Treated with minimantle radiation therapy [radiation to lower jaw, neck and upper chest]
  >Bone marrow harvest in August 1992
  >Complete response

• JANUARY 1993: RECURRENCE

• >Treated with interferon until May 1993
  >Phase I trial with IDEC C2B8 [Rituxan]
  >Partial response

• FEBRUARY 1994: RECURRENCE

• >Phase II trial with Rituxan until May 1994
  >Complete response

• FEBRUARY 1995: RECURRENCE

• >Treated with fludarabine, mitroxantrone, dexamethasone chemotherapy until October 1995
  >Complete response 

• MAY 1997: RECURRENCE

• >Phase II trial with Rituxan
  >Complete response

• MAY 1998: RECURRENCE

• >Treated with Rituxan until June 1998
  >Complete response

• DECEMBER 2005: RECURRENCE

• >Treated with GM-CSF [granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor] and Rituxan 
  >Complete response

CURRENT STATUS: IN REMISSION

• >Maintenance Rituxan therapy with GM-CSF 

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