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Travel Insurance - update

 

 Response from Medici travel:

Glivac is a medication that is NOT an oral chemotherapy, but can often be used in conjunction with Chemotherapy treatment.

 

So as long as the customer is not receiving Chemo (oral or otherwise) and is taking this medication in isolation then it will be alright to say they are not undergoing chemotherapy.   

 

Thanks to all those who responded regarding travel insurance a few weeks ago. I have now rung round  many insurers to try and get cover including CML for a family holiday to Japan for two weeks in October.  

Our holidays are more usually closer to home within Europe so I might not be so concerned about covering the CML but this is a bit of a one-off and with 6 of us travelling all that way costs are substantial so I would ideally like the CML covered.  We had previously been with Age Concern (though mid40s I try not to think of myself as aged) but at the recent renewal date they have decided not to cover CML  - the policy is underwritten by Fortis insurance.  

So I started phoning round and some quotes were astronomic - the highest being £1,500!

Medici Travel asked a lot of sensible questions, were very helpful and provided by far the lowest quote at £111 in total for all of us.  This relied on my answering 'no' to the question 'are you currently undergoing chemotherapy?'.  I am confident that this is the right answer to the question but if a claim is made it is the insurers interpretation of whether or not glivec constitutes chemotherapy that will count.  So I asked them and have a reply (copied above) which confirms that they do not see glivec as chemotherapy - I am not convinced they have the full picture as the misspelling of Glivec and frequent use to accompany chemo seems strange but I am happy to proceed.  

 

Not recommending that any of you use the pasted statement above directly as evidence i but I would ask them to confirm their understanding to you.  Anyway delighted to have found cover at a good price so thought I'd pass this on.

Hello Annie, 

thanks  very much for posting this. It is very helpful and claryfies where the difficulties might lie- i.e with the interpretation of what is and what is not 'chemotherapy'. 

Best wishes,

Sandy

Just wondering whether Dasatinib is classed as chemo? I know when I first went on it they said it was but i am not sure - any ideas?

K

Hi Karena,

imatinib, nilotinib and imatinib are all a class of drugs described as targeted therapy. They are called tyrosine kinase inhibitorsor TKI's for short-  and have a very different action than the class of drugs we know as 'chemotherapy' which (before TKI's or the idea of targeted therapies) were used to treat cancers. Chemotherapy is an umbrella term for very potent drugs like fludarabine, busulphan etc etc. which kill all cells rather than target particular cells.

In acute leukaemias (AML, ALL.blast stage of CML etc) they are still very useful for saving lives but they do take their toll on the body and are not curative. During the pre-conditioning regime for transplant 'chemotherapy' drugs are used to kill the whole white cell population in order that the new donor cells can take over and grow a new immune system.

Therapy with TKI's like imatinib, dasatinib etc means that only the Ph+ cells are targeted and eventually die. This is a very different far less toxic kind of therapy and it is not correct to call it 'chemotherapy'. of course you could say these drugs are chemicals and they are therapy so.... chemo+therapy! but that would be churlish as well as misleading.

So insurance companies have it wrong if they class TKI's with chemotherapy drugs. 

Best wishes,

Sandy