Matt has had 4 infusions of the new drug and he seems to be tolerating it very well. He is tired and has had some nausea, but we believe the nausea comes from the pain meds more than the trial drug. We got some anti nausea medicine and things are better in that area.
We had a very stressful day last Friday when Matt went in to get infusion. We were told that our insurance company would not pay for one of the drugs. One drug, Avastin, is a standard drug that is used with chemotherapy drugs and is FDA approved already. This drug is extremely expensive. Matt's trial includes Avastin with the trial drug which is TRC105. The pharmaceutical company that is sponsoring the trial pays for their trial drug, but not for Avastin. Even though Avastin is a standard care drug, Matt has already had it with two other chemo protocols. The government guidelines say that an insurance company does not have to pay for a 3rd line of treatment with Avastin.
We waited nearly 3 hours while the oncologist was on the phone with United Healthcare trying to get them to change their minds. They would not budge. Next the oncologist spoke to the pharmaceutical company that is sponsoring the trial and asked them if they could cover it. Because they are a small company and Avastin costs $7400 an infusion, they declined. Our last hope is that the makers of Avastin will give the drug to us for free or maybe at a reduced rate.
Matt was finally able to have the infusion with the understanding that in the next two weeks the oncologist/research center would work on getting the Avastin from the manufacturer. So as of right now we are in limbo as to whether or not Matt will continue with this trial.
Matt's blood work showed that the liver function numbers are now all back in the normal range after being high for several months now. We are hopeful that this is a good sign that the current trial is working to keep him stable. We pray that he will be able to stay on this trial.
No comments:
Post a Comment