Talk Cancer

Question:

I have a seven year old son who seems to be doing well on day 8 of a bone marrow transplant ofr ALL leukemia.  The BMT became necessary after he relapsed twice on the standard chemotherapy regiments.  This BMT is pretty much his last medical alternative, so far as we know, and the doctors are giving him a 90% chance of relapse due to his pre-BMT relapses.  Hopefully my son will be in the 10% that DOES NOT relapse, but does anybody know of a good "what next" in case he DOES relapse?  Thanks and God bless. — Jim

Response:

I have a seven year old son who seems to be doing well on day 8 of a bone marrow transplant ofr ALL leukemia.  The BMT became necessary after he relapsed twice on the standard chemotherapy regiments.  This BMT is pretty much his last medical alternative, so far as we know, and the doctors are giving him a 90% chance of relapse due to his pre-BMT relapses.  Hopefully my son will be in the 10% that DOES NOT relapse, but does anybody know of a good "what next" in case he DOES relapse?  Thanks and God bless.

Another BMT with a different induction protocol is one potential option. What type of BMT was performed? An allogeneic (other person was a donor) or autologous (patient’s clean marrow was the donor)? In an allogenic transplant, they may manipulate the GVHD (graft versus host disaese) to purge any of the residual marrow …as well as purge any residual leukemia cells. Loren Buhle

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