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Husband with AML facing a stem cell transplant
Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) & CAR-T Cell Therapy | Last Active: Sep 7 11:43pm | Replies (117)Comment receiving replies
Hi Mary, just wanted to check in to see how your husband did with round two of his chemo. From my experience, each time seemed to take a little bit longer to rebound with energy level. You mentioned this was another induction round. So he may have another round called consolidation which is a good way of ‘sweeping up’ any remaining cancer cells.
The challenging thing with AML is that some cells can become resistant to the chemo, they can mutate or even go dormant and hide out only to emerge months later. So that’s why the stem cell transplant is important. From my experience and understanding on how this works, is that with mutations, your husband’s immune system no longer recognizes these as cancer cells so they are allowed to proliferate. It is the hope that a new immune system from a donor will again recognize the cancer cells if they emerge and snuff them out. It’s amazing and it can work. ☺️
So tell him to hang in there! Things get better. Hugs.
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Good morning Lori,
My husband finished the 7 day IV infusion of cycle 2 a couple days ago. He continues to take an oral chemo drug everyday.
His counts were amazing yesterday with his WBC’s in the normal range for the first time since this all started. They say it’s likely a rebound from the end of cycle 1 and his counts should go down again in the next couple weeks. He is tolerating the treatment well! We are so grateful for that. Next biopsy is April 9. We are looking for any signs of the mutations and chromosome deletion to be gone before they will consider it a full remission. It can be tricky to get to that point so who knows, he may need an additional cycle after that. And we all know the more those cells are eradicated before transplant the better his chances are of not experiencing a relapse post transplant. So that is my prayer now. I feel like my prayers for “hopeful signs” are being heard as well! 😊
We have a lot to consider though when it comes to staying with the NW team or possibly seeking another option and possible treatment at MD Anderson.