SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 9 -- Rituximab (Rituxan) and eltrombopag (Promacta) are "too aggressive and too expensive" for use as first-line therapies against chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, agreed participants in an exclusive ľֱ roundtable discussion.
Despite the fact that a study of rituximab and dexamethasone versus dexamethasone in treatment-naïve ITP found that the combination was effective, James N. George, M.D., of the hematology-oncology section at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, cautioned that the treatment was too aggressive for first-line therapy.
Dr. George, a past president of ASH, joined David J. Kuter, M.D., D.Phil, director of the center for hematology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and J. Evan Sadler, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, in a discussion of the latest platelet research reported at ASH.
Dr. Sadler noted that several studies -- especially results of the RAISE trial -- provided evidence of the "bench to bedside" research reported at ASH in recent years.
Peggy Peck, the executive editor of ľֱ, moderated the discussion.