Important Safety Information
Your Role in the Care Team
A caregiver has many possible roles. Helping with the healthcare team and giving emotional support are 2 important ones. Below, you will find some helpful tips.
Helping with the healthcare team
One of your main roles may be to help work with the healthcare team. The following tips may help:
- Attend doctor appointments with your loved one. Take notes and collect any printed educational materials that are available
- Gather and share information about diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis with your loved one
- You may wish to organize all of the information that you collect into a binder
- Ask healthcare professionals questions about side effects, treatment options and procedures, test results, and any other relevant topics. Create a list of questions
- Inquire about non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) patients who are willing to share their experiences
Supporting your loved one
After receiving a diagnosis of cancer, it is important to understand what your loved one is going through. Emotions such as anxiety, fear, a feeling of hopelessness, depression, and anger are common. Your loved one may experience some or all of these feelings. And each person will handle them differently.
Your loved one may feel uncertain about what changes will take place in his or her life. Some people may fear the cancer itself. Others may be afraid of the treatments and worry about how they will get through them. Fear of pain, suffering, and death are some of the greatest fears many people with cancer have. It is also natural to worry about how families and jobs may be affected.
So what can you do? Just by being there, you can help. Many patients ask a friend or loved one to go along on doctor visits. It can be useful to have another set of ears at the doctor’s office. Caregivers can help by keeping track of questions, taking notes, and helping follow the doctor’s instructions at home. And on the next page, we’ll talk about a number of ways you can help support your loved one emotionally.
This information does not take the place of talking with your doctor. Discuss with your doctor any questions you have about your medical condition or your treatment.
Indications and Important Safety Information
RITUXAN® (Rituximab) is indicated for the treatment of patients with:
- Relapsed or refractory, low-grade or follicular, CD20-positive, B-cell NHL as a single agent
- Previously untreated follicular, CD20-positive, B-cell NHL in combination with CVP chemotherapy
- Non-progressing (including stable disease), low-grade, CD20-positive, B-cell NHL, as a single agent, after first-line CVP chemotherapy
- Previously untreated diffuse large B-cell, CD20-positive NHL in combination with CHOP or other anthracycline-based chemotherapy regimens
People with serious infections should not receive RITUXAN.
Important Safety Information:
- RITUXAN can cause serious side effects that can lead to death, including: infusion reactions, tumor lysis syndrome (TLS; kidney failure due to fast breakdown of cancer cells), severe skin and mouth reactions, and progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML; a rare, serious brain infection).
- RITUXAN has also been associated with serious and life-threatening side effects, including: the return of active hepatitis B virus infection with sudden and serious liver problems including liver failure, and death, other serious infections that can lead to death, heart problems, kidney problems, and stomach and serious bowel problems including blockage and tears in the bowel that can sometimes lead to death.
- The most common side effects of RITUXAN seen in patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma were infusion reactions, fever, chills, low white blood cells, infections, body aches, and tiredness. Before starting treatment with RITUXAN it is important to talk to your doctor about your medical history.
- Tell your doctor about any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away. These are not all of the possible side effects with RITUXAN. For more information, ask your doctor
Please see full Prescribing Information, including Medication Guide.
