Dr. Coleman, you've seen over the years kind of the major impact that rituximab has made in these diseases, and traditionally patients were treated with chemotherapy. Now we use rituximab with chemotherapy. Now there's a whole group of patients that are getting treated with rituximab alone. So what sorts of patients do you see as appropriate for just treatment with rituximab alone, and how do you like to give it in that sort of scenario?
MORTON COLEMAN, MD: Patients really tolerate Rituxan remarkably well. One of the particularly good properties of Rituxan is that it does not impact bone marrow function, and sometimes we can just get away, or get by, if you would, with using Rituxan by itself. It's simple. You take it once a week for four weeks, and it's given in the office, and thereafter there's very little to contend with.
The big debate now in medical circles is whether patients who respond to Rituxan -- those patients in particular who have just slowly progressive disease -- whether these patients should be maintained with Rituxan or not. I think the current trend is tilting toward maintaining these patients, although the jury is still out.
JOHN LEONARD, MD: And so the advantages, Dr. O'Connor, of maintenance rituximab in your view, obviously, the patient has to come back to get more treatment. What's the tradeoff there? Are there downsides in your experience as far as the convenience of it? Do you think it works well? What about side effects?
