A good Friday

I had an email from my crack dealer in Manchester to say that my camera would be arriving this week - and it has. It only took those nice people in Germany a month to make it for me and I went over yesterday to collect it. A very good Friday indeed. :-)

This thing really is a thing of beauty. The paint finish is lovely and feels "soft" to the touch. It's heavy and solid and feels like it's built like a tank. Or a swiss watch.

The wind on is already smooth and silky and the shutter has a distinctly deep "click" than my 50+ year old M2. I suspect that in 50 years time, this one's voice will have raised to a baritone too. Who knows - not  me that's for sure! I bought an Artisan and Artist black leather case for it, which looks and smells wonderful. That too is really nicely made and the leather perfectly matches that of the camera.

As I have probably said, I ordered the camera with a viewfinder especially for use with wider angle lenses, known as a "0.58 viewfinder". The image in the finder is 58% of the size of "real life", which means that you get a wider view in the finder than normal. This makes the use of a 35mm lens much easier, especially for those of us who wear glasses. I should have bought a 0.58 camera years ago - I can even use my right eye with it.

So. That's all good. I will probably take it for a spin into Liverpool later. I will post a shot or two from the first roll soon.

Unfortunately, the thing with Pippa's lead and the camera strap didn't work out, but it was a nice idea...

Keep positive

Musn't let this get to me. This will work for me.

Bad news on the Rituximab maintenance

I have been keeping tabs on the progress of Rituximab as it goes through the NICE approval process (previous blog posts refer, especially from late summer / autumn last year). Knowing that it was around this time of the year that the committee were supposed to be making a judgement, I had a look at the NICE website just now. It has indeed been considered by the committee and this is their judgement:

The Committee is minded not to recommend rituximab for first-line maintenance treatment of people with advanced follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that has responded to first-line induction therapy with rituximab in combination with chemotherapy.


The Committee recommends that NICE requests from the manufacturer further clarification, which should be made available for the next Appraisal Committee meeting.
 
Now, there is a door ajar there for the manufacturer to provide more information, but, reading through the rest of the report (available here: http://guidance.nice.org.uk/TA/Wave19/59/Consultation/DraftGuidance), this is not good news.
 
I am fortunate that, because my haematologist has recommended the treatment, BUPA will pay for it. The question that is raised by this report, however, is "How effective is this maintenance?"
 
Well, a conclusion is that it is effective, but that the manufacturer could not demonstrate how effective.
 
The Committee concluded that the available evidence shows that first-line maintenance treatment with rituximab improves progression-free survival compared with observation, but that the size of any overall survival benefit could not be determined.
 
Further, there is no evidence that I have seen on my first skim through, that suggests an overall improvement in life expectancy, rather than just a shifting of the need for second round of chemotherapy. 
 
I need to study the report in more detail later, but overall this doesn't look great.

I need to get out and take some photographs...