Corel Medical Series: Cancer/Corel Medical Series: Cancer.iso/mac/Program/c28.dxr/00087_Field_SRC.c28.A.15.txt

Text File | 1997-01-28 | 1KB | 12 lines

  greatly limits its use in multiple myeloma . Only 5 to 10 percent of multiple myeloma patients can have an
  allogeneic bone marrow transplantation because of their age and the lack of a matched donor.
• Autologous transplantation—in which bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells are removed from a patient
  before high-dose radiation or chemotherapy and then returned—is applicable for more patients because the age
  limit is higher (approximately 65 years) and a matched donor is unnecessary. The mortality rate for autologous
  transplantation is less than 10 percent.
      But there are two major problems with autologous transplantation for patients with multiple myeloma.
  First, it is difficult to destroy all the myeloma cells from the bone marrow even with high doses of
  chemotherapy and radiation. Second, it is difficult to remove the malignant myeloma cells from the bone
  marrow or blood before reinfusion. Using chemotherapy or monoclonal antibodies directed against myeloma
  cells (or both monoclonal antibodies and chemotherapy) may be helpful but is not yet practical.