Back from Stanford and San Francisco

I met with EOS specialist Dr. Jason Gotlib at Stanford Cancer Center on Monday. He still wants to completely rule out any "secondary" causes of elevated EOS before arriving at a diagnosis of HES (hyper eosinophilic syndrome).

Once I've tapered off the steroids in a few weeks, I'll arrange for allergy testing. This is just a matter of doing due diligence because I don't seem to have any allergy symptoms. And Dr. Gotlib is the first to acknowledge that allergies rarely cause EOS to soar into the sky-high "severe" range that mine reached last summer.

So. . . no quickie diagnosis and no quickie cure. If it's determined I have HES, Dr. Gotlib would like to include me in a clinical trial of a monoclonal antibody called mepolimuzab. The drug does a great job of controlling EOS without all the harmful, long-term side effects of steroids.

And if "monoclonal antibody" rings a bell, it could be because I've written about another miracle drug in the same category. Rituxan (aka Susan's relapse prevention), the quarterly maintenance drug I take through an IV, is in the same drug class.