EXPLORER, the world's first medical imaging scanner that can capture a 3-D picture of the whole human body at once, has produced its first scans.
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The brainchild of UC Davis scientists Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi, EXPLORER is a combined positron emission tomography (PET) and x-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner that can image the entire body at the same time. Because the machine captures radiation far more efficiently than other scanners, EXPLORER can produce an image in as little as one second and, over time, produce movies that can track specially tagged drugs as they move around the entire body.
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Alternatively, EXPLORER can scan with a radiation dose up to 40 times less than a current PET scan, opening new avenues of research and making it feasible to conduct many repeated studies in an individual, or dramatically reduce the dose in pediatric studies, where controlling cumulative radiation dose is particularly important.
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"The tradeoff between image quality, acquisition time and injected radiation dose will vary for different applications, but in all cases, we can scan better, faster or with less radiation dose, or some combination of these," Cherry said.
Hopefully the quality point in last para. will be improved. It may require more rads or not be applicable to somel situations.
At least it appears the device is an improvement for some (maybe most) situations. Onward and Upward, but with an eye to thorough rather than fast and fancy is my old fashioned view.
Hi Len this new EXPLORER will be helpful for CLL pt.much less Radioactive Rays. I Have Question for you: in January 2019 I will be 5th year on Imbruvica! And my Medicare part D Silver Script refuse to pay for it 12190.00 per month. What I supposed to do now. Your information were very helpful last year because after first 3 months and few thousands I reach Catastrophic Stage In Medicare and I obtained Imbruvica free for 9 months
Your should contact your CLL Expert doctor and see if they can help resolve the issue working through their preferred specialty pharmacy ( the doctor or the hospital are the ones that choose one of these: Avella, Biologics, Diplomat or ONCO360 ). Hopefully the specialty pharmacy will have a good understanding of the current policies from your Part D insurer.
If not, I suggest you consider changing your Part D insurance. You should work on this quickly and decide whether you should change Part D insurance before December 7.
IMO the Part D insurers won't provide much help, the specialty pharmacies seem to be the best source for suggestions and have the experience for which Part D Insurers have the best coverage for Ibrutinib.
If the specialty pharmacy does not help, then contact the LLS and ask them to assist you
The Medicare Part D drug plans vary widely according to zip code and formulary (how much copay is involved at each increment), but fortunately you can change plans every year between mid October and the first week of December.
I have changed plans every year usually from one Express Scripts Medco plan to a newer Express Scripts Medco plan- they seem to change names of their plans and add a lower cost one annually and raise the monthly cost of the older plans each year.
The Medicare Website has a tool that takes away all the confusion and allows you to see the annual cost for different plans.
Once you get to the website - fill in all your personal details on the first page and then go to the page where you enter your existing prescriptions, then add Ibrutinib/Imbruvica and choose 90 capsules for 30 days.
When they ask about mail order vs. local pharmacy - you should choose local- it seems counter intuitive since the specialty pharmacies that send Ibrutinib always use FedEx, but the website considers that a local pharmacy.
After all that entry- you will get a list of pharmacy names and plan names. The lowest total annual cost will be listed first and then in increasing annual cost. Some pharmacies will be listed multiple times with their different plan names. In my case the Express Scripts Medco with the lowest monthly cost is not the best deal, since the copay is higher, making it about $300 more per year total annual cost.
It's complex and the only way to figure it out is to use the online tool.
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