Very encouraging news!!

[patti]

Jim,

Great! I will look forward to our trip then. Mom just sits and takes in the all the sites. My husband does all the driving and hard stuff. I just navigate. We LOVE motorhoming. I think when my husband retires we will end up being full timers. We enjoy criss crossing the US and seeing new sites. Our kids get terrific history and geography lessons this way.

Yep, you did a lot of stuff. I told mom yesterday about what you said and she will just take it easy for awhile.

As a bummer side note – she hasn’t had an infection since she was diagnosed almost 20mos ago and last night she popped up with her first fever. Gone today though. The doctor just had her give herself extra neupogen shots this week. Don’t know what it was but whatever is was my son got it this morning.

Anyway, thanks for the info, Jim. Here’s to many more decades for ya!

Patti

[John in GR]

Hi Patti,

WOW. This is the kind of approach that is definitely worth pursuing. It surely fits my strategy– a potentially significant upside, with no significant negative side effects. Very exciting stuff. I’d like to talk to this gentleman.

John

[patti]

John,

I’m sending you the info via private mail. Mom is transfusing tomorrow. She was able to stretch 3 weeks since the last tx and she has had little to no angina (which was getting almost unbearable to her). So all in all, I’d say the herbs are at least helping some. We decided that this disease didn’t get worse overnight and the herbs won’t cure it overnight either. But they do appear to be helping everything from her blood pressure to her heart to lengthening her time between transfusions. It is very encouraging. I actually told her yesterday we need to be extra careful because she feels so good it might be easy to miss when she needs blood and send her into a heart attack. She hadn’t thought of that so we’re trying to be more diligent with a few things to make sure we don’t miss anything.

Patti

[Engel]

What is the difference between a SCT and BMT, I quess this question must sound stupid but I really don’t know. Thanks. Gloria

[Jimbob]

I got a book “Bone Marrow and Blood Stem Cell Transplants” from bmtinfonet from my hospital. I believe they are now marrow.org It is very thorough in explaining the differences. In fact, it does a pretty good job of explaining the entire process choosing a center to the various facets of recovery with an explanation of the difficulties that one might encounter.

Many people use them interchangeably saying BMT when they probably mean SCT. Bonen Marrow Transplants have been done for abut 40 years. The donor actually gives bone marrow, which is aspirated out of the pelvic or other large bones, which is then injected into the recipient. It usually requires that the donor be unconscitious because it can take up to 300 sapirations similiar to the single aspiration a patient gets for a bone marrow biopsy. The donor is liekly to feel bone pain and soreness for a few days after but should fully recover. In a SCT, only stem cells are transplanted. The are usually harvested from the periphial blood of the donor in much the same way as someone giving plasma. The donor is usually given drugs to increase the production of stem cells, which also encourages them to enter the blood stream, for three or four days. Then the donor is hooked-up to a aspherysis (sp?) machine which takes blood from one arm and returns it to the other arm. As it goes thru the machine, the blood is spun at a certain rate that will separate the stem sells and they are harvested while the rest of the components of the donor’s blood are returned. The stem cells are kept in a bag and look a lot like a bag of plasma. They can be infused into the patient immediately thru an IV or they can be frozen for an indefinite period. The recipient is prepped for a BMT or a SCT pretty much the same way. Chemo is usually given first to kill off the patient’s own stem cells and then some type of radiation treatment.

The first big problem with either is finding a match. It is beyond matching blood types; the donor and recipient must have matching HLA to reduce GVHD and have any chance for a successful transplant. HLA is Human Leukocyte Antigens. They are like protein fingerprints on the white blood cells. They come from one’s parents; evenso, the chance of a match between siblings is one in four. That is only the chance; sometimes even in a very large family there are no matches and a search for a matching un-related donor has to be made.

[Engel]

Thank you so much for this very informative information. Can a 69 year old without siplings have a SCT , since we have been told my husband would not be a candidate for BMT. I am collecting all the information I can get since we are having a very difficult time. Thank you. Gloria

husband 69 dx 01/06 Procrit not working transfusion every 4 weeks.

[g-masews]

The reason your husband is being told he is not a candidate is probabaly his age. The risks are exceedingly greater with age and until recently, transplants weren’t being done in anyone past mid-fifties. Under 40 is the best candidate. There has been significant strides in this area, however, and especially with what is called reduced intensity conditioning (or Mini Transplant). It involves less chemo and radiation before transplant which is easier on the patient. It has a reduced mortality rate for older patients (over 60) than standard transplants, but the overall failure rate is about the same. The upper age even for a mini transplant is still about 65-70, so that may further limit the possibility for your husband. If I may interject a personal opinion, while a transplant may present the only possible “cure”, it doesn’t necessarily mean restored to good health. Even if successful, there are so many complications that are on-going. Just surviving it, for an older person, is difficult enough, but the patient could spend whatever precious time left recouperating from something that failed. Ask your doctor about mini transplants, but don’t pin your hopes too high. Live with each day as a blessing; none of us are guaranteed more.

[Author]

Posts