3 ms·

A good friend of mine, Eric Drew, survived two failed fully oblative bone marrow transplants (partial match) and was out of options, so he "qualified" for an ex

by jcr 15y ago

A good friend of mine, Eric Drew, survived two failed fully oblative bone marrow transplants (partial match) and was out of options, so he "qualified" for an experimental "Cord Blood Transplant" which cured his Acute Lyphoblastic Leukimia. I believe it was done through the University of Wisconsin, but I'm uncertain if the procedure has gotten out of research trials. If Amit runs out of options, he should look into it. EDIT: I do know the fancy medical terms, but I don't pretend to really understand what they mean. You need a real serious medical education to understand this stuff.

earl 15y ago
I think the term is an ablative and/or autologous bone marrow transplant. My father had this performed to treat type ii non hodgkins lymphoma. Essentially, if there is no donor, you can draw a patient's own bone marrow, attempt to treat it so that it has no cancerous cells, culture the hopefully cleansed bone marrow, kill all the patient's bone marrow in their body via high doses of chemo and/or radiation, then reimplant the patient's own cultured and hopefully safe bone marrow. While the patient has no bone marrow they will be completely dependent on donor blood. What these antiseptic descriptions mask is "killing a patient's bone marrow" is roughly equal to poisoning that person just a tiny bit shy of killing him or her.
- lmkg 15y ago
  > What these antiseptic descriptions mask is "killing a patient's bone marrow" is roughly equal to poisoning that person just a tiny bit shy of killing him or her. That's a description of most cancer treatments, especially the traditional ones. Cancer cells are so similar to normal healthy tissue, they're difficult to target with high specificity. Most treatments (especially chemo and radiation) work by killing cancer cells marginally better than they kill (most) normal cells. The targeting is getting better for both classes of treatment, but the collateral damage is still significant. Killing all bone marrow cells indiscriminately sidesteps the targeting issue, with the trade-off that you effectively remove an entire vital organ. This is just as drastic, but in this particular case happens to be a surmountable obstacle.
there 15y ago
off-topic, but is it really appropriate to be describing your friend's private medical history on a public website that will be archived far and wide? i think your comment is still valid without his name being mentioned.
- jcr 15y ago
  Most definitely up-voted! Thanks for the concern 'there' but the info I posted is entirely and intentionally public knowledge. Eric went through a great deal medically, started a foundation to help others with ALL, and even had his identity stolen while undergoing chemo up in Washington state by the person who took his blood samples every day. His case was aired on "60 minutes" or "Dateline" and resulted in one of the first federal prosecutions under HIPPA laws. I didn't want to "pimp" the foundation here on HN (I served on the board for the first two years), but you can read more about it here: http://www.drewfoundation.org/ http://www.drewfoundation.org/
  - srl 15y ago
    Knew the name sounded familiar - I remember reading about this guy in National Geographic or something. Amazing story.

by jcr 15y ago

earl 15y ago

I think the term is an ablative and/or autologous bone marrow transplant. My father had this performed to treat type ii non hodgkins lymphoma. Essentially, if there is no donor, you can draw a patient's own bone marrow, attempt to treat it so that it has no cancerous cells, culture the hopefully cleansed bone marrow, kill all the patient's bone marrow in their body via high doses of chemo and/or radiation, then reimplant the patient's own cultured and hopefully safe bone marrow. While the patient has no bone marrow they will be completely dependent on donor blood. What these antiseptic descriptions mask is "killing a patient's bone marrow" is roughly equal to poisoning that person just a tiny bit shy of killing him or her.

lmkg 15y ago
> What these antiseptic descriptions mask is "killing a patient's bone marrow" is roughly equal to poisoning that person just a tiny bit shy of killing him or her. That's a description of most cancer treatments, especially the traditional ones. Cancer cells are so similar to normal healthy tissue, they're difficult to target with high specificity. Most treatments (especially chemo and radiation) work by killing cancer cells marginally better than they kill (most) normal cells. The targeting is getting better for both classes of treatment, but the collateral damage is still significant. Killing all bone marrow cells indiscriminately sidesteps the targeting issue, with the trade-off that you effectively remove an entire vital organ. This is just as drastic, but in this particular case happens to be a surmountable obstacle.

there 15y ago

off-topic, but is it really appropriate to be describing your friend's private medical history on a public website that will be archived far and wide? i think your comment is still valid without his name being mentioned.

jcr 15y ago
Most definitely up-voted! Thanks for the concern 'there' but the info I posted is entirely and intentionally public knowledge. Eric went through a great deal medically, started a foundation to help others with ALL, and even had his identity stolen while undergoing chemo up in Washington state by the person who took his blood samples every day. His case was aired on "60 minutes" or "Dateline" and resulted in one of the first federal prosecutions under HIPPA laws. I didn't want to "pimp" the foundation here on HN (I served on the board for the first two years), but you can read more about it here: http://www.drewfoundation.org/ http://www.drewfoundation.org/
- srl 15y ago
  Knew the name sounded familiar - I remember reading about this guy in National Geographic or something. Amazing story.