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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >> Transplanted cells from the patient don't recognize the myeloma cells as foreign and don't attack them, allowing the disease to recur more readily.
For this investigation, researchers enrolled 162 patients aged 65 years and younger who had recently been diagnosed with myeloma and had at least one sibling.
All participants were treated with chemotherapy, followed by autologous stem cell rescue (transplants using their own stem cells). Those with a compatible sibling also received radiation and stem cells from that sibling (called an allograft).
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Patients without a compatible sibling instead received two consecutive doses of melphalan, a chemotherapy drug, each of which was followed by autologous stem cell rescue.
After a median follow-up of almost four years, median overall survival and survival without a recurrence of the disease were longer in the patients who had received a sibling stem cell transplant. Overall survival was 80 months in those undergoing the two different transplants vs. 54 months for those receiving transplants only from themselves. Event-free survival was 35 months for those in the autologous group and 29 months in the other group.
Deaths resulting from treatment were similar in both groups. Disease-free mortality was higher in the double-autologous group (43 percent vs. 7 percent).
After a median follow-up of 38 months, 36 percent of patients were in complete remission after allografting.
More than half (54 percent) of those receiving two autografts died.
It's important to remember that all participants in the study were under the age of 65, Lichtman said. In "real life," only 40 percent of myeloma patients are in this age group. The proportion with compatible siblings is even less (about 10 percent). And only about half who received the treatment experienced complete remission, or 5 percent of the total.
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