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wheatley2992
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Posted: Fri Aug 29th, 2008 12:11 pm |
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I would be interested in hearing from anyone on the subject of Myeloma Stem Cells. I am hearing more and more about it. The idea that about 5% of a myeloma patients stem cells are cancerous. If this is true then when we go through a auto stem cell transplant we are putting back cancerous stem cells into our body. Hence one of the reasons why Myeloma returns. Almost all of the drugs used today do not go after myeloma stem cells with the exception of one or two that are in trial. Tositumomab is one drug that is now in trial for myeloma patients that have CD20 canerous stem cells which is a small percentage of patients. If all this is true I would think going after cancerous stem cells is a way to cure Myeloma.
Clinical Trial of Consolidation Treatment With Iodine I 131 Tositumomab for Multiple Myeloma - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov
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DougC
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Posted: Wed Sep 3rd, 2008 02:17 am |
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| That's interesting.......thanks for sharing. I knew going in to the transplants that some cancerous stem cells were going back in...at least that was my understanding. I guess the hope is/was to combat the environment in which the myeloma cells hang. Do a google search for John Hopkins+myeloma+stem cells. They released a recent study that is in line with what you're presenting (I think) and you might find it interesting. Sure would be nice if a cure came about through this stem cell research...thanks again for sharing.
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wheatley2992
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Posted: Wed Sep 3rd, 2008 10:51 am |
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Thanks Doug for your reply. I have read the report that you mentioned. It was one of the first reports that I read. I have found a website that deals exclusively with stem cells as the root of cancer. Thought you might find it interesting.
http://www.stemline.com/default.asp
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DougC
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Posted: Wed Sep 3rd, 2008 04:51 pm |
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Thanks Wheatly...it'll be interesting to watch that company develop its products and see what sort of impact they end up having.
Thanks again
Doug
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Annick
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Posted: Sat Sep 6th, 2008 12:04 am |
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Response from Dr. Tricot regarding myeloma stem cells:
There is still a debate whether there are myeloma stem cells. If there are, it would explain why it is so difficult to cure myeloma. In many other cancers there are cancer stem cells that make up 1 in 10,000-1/20,000 of all cancer cells. These cancer stem cells are more resistant to chemotherapy and radiation than the other cancer cells. We need to understand better how cancer stem cells differ from the other cancer cells so that we can better target these cancer stem cells. It is unknown if cancer stem cells in myeloma are only in the bone marrow or are also in the peripheral blood. Since we have to assume that a stem cell transplant always contains some cancer stem cells, we think it is crucial that patients continue to receive treatment after transplantation if we want to have a good shot at curing this disease.
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DougC
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Posted: Tue Sep 16th, 2008 06:12 pm |
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Interesting read on Stem Cells:
I found the below paragraph of special interest becasue I believe the addition of Gemcitabine to the second transplant, as part of the tandum transplant schema used at the Huntsman, addresses DNA cell repair. Could it be the Huntsman is on to something here?
Full article found at http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12202589
Cancer stem cells
The root of all evil?
Sep 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition
"Since these two pieces of work, the list of cancer stem cells has multiplied. It now includes tumours of the breast, brain, prostate, colon, pancreas, ovary, lung, bladder, head and neck, as well as melanoma, sarcoma, AML, chronic myelogenous leukaemia, Hodgkin’s lymphoma and myeloma.
That is quite a list. The question is, what can be done with it? Jeremy Rich, a neurologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has one idea. He created mice that had human glioblastoma tumours, a form of brain cancer, growing in them. Then he treated these mice with radiation (the standard therapy for such cancer in people). He found that the cancer stem cells were more likely to survive this treatment than the other cells in the tumour. That turned out to be because, although all the tumour cells suffered equal amounts of DNA damage from the radiation, the stem cells were better able to repair this damage. When he treated the mice simultaneously with radiation and with a drug that interferes with DNA repair, however, the stem cells no longer had an advantage. They were killed by the radiation along with the other cells."
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Annick
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Posted: Tue Sep 16th, 2008 06:55 pm |
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| This is, indeed, the idea behind using Gemcitabine with transplant 2, so I'm very glad to learn of this article. I have not yet read that issue of the Economist, but I'll be sure to read that article. Thanks so much for sharing this in the chat room.
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wheatley2992
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Posted: Tue Sep 16th, 2008 10:09 pm |
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Thanks for finding the article. It is very interesting. Sounds like there is a lot of work to do. As each day passes there is more evidence. More reason to be hopeful. If you find more articles please pass on, I will do the same.
Mark
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