[Niki]

Tandem stem cell transplants - best timing?

by Niki on Sat Nov 02, 2013 6:16 am

Hello everybody,

My mother is scheduled to receive tandem transplants and after a lot of appointments with doctors we noticed that there are 3 ways of doing it. The first is to make them 2 to 6 months apart, the second 3 weeks to 3 months apart and the last doctor told us 6 months to 12 months apart. Is there some evidence which method is of more benefit? Is the timing so important or not to be relapsed before the second transplant?

Best regards to all

Niki

[Gilbert]

Re: Tandem stem cell transplants - best timing?

by Gilbert on Sat Nov 02, 2013 9:14 am

I had first SCT 7/9/10 second SCT 12/10/10, each time getting approx 7 million of my own cells
Recovered nicely aim 64 very active and take no meds now
I am a non- secretory multiple myeloma person
Pet Scan every 6 months.Go for it get the tandem and Stay Strong!

[Wayne K]

Re: Tandem stem cell transplants - best timing?

by Wayne K on Sat Nov 02, 2013 11:16 am

You don't mention your mothers age or physical health. I had my one and only at 71and my health was so so after all that had preceded it. It took me a couple of months to really feel alive again.
If there is no expected gain in outcome I think I would consider the longer span.

[Anonymous]

Re: Tandem stem cell transplants - best timing?

by Anonymous on Sat Nov 02, 2013 7:14 pm

My mother is 74 years old. She did the first transplant 2 months ago and she has already recovered from it completely. She was in sCR before the first transplant and she continuous to be in sCR after it. Thank you very much for your responses. I really appreciated.

Best regards
Niki

[dnalex]

Re: Tandem stem cell transplants - best timing?

by dnalex on Sun Nov 03, 2013 1:46 pm

Anonymous (Niki) wrote:

My mother is 74 years old. She did the first transplant 2 months ago and she has already recovered from it completely. She was in sCR before the first transplant and she continuous to be in sCR after it. Thank you very much for your responses. I really appreciated.
- - - -

If this is the case, I would talk to her myeloma doctor. Does your mother have standard risk myeloma? If that's the case, I don't know that I would consider a second transplant at this time.

[Dr. Jason Valent]

Re: Tandem stem cell transplants - best timing?

by Dr. Jason Valent on Sun Nov 03, 2013 4:51 pm

There has not been head to head comparison of any of those time points.

Generally the 2 transplants are done within 6 months.

[Anonymous]

Re: Tandem stem cell transplants - best timing?

by Anonymous on Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:29 am

Thank you very much Dr. Valent for your answer.

My mother, initially had a del17p, but she responded extremely well to treatment and in a month she was in sCR. In the beginning she had a chemo, went into sCR and we stopped the treatment for 8 months. She didn't relapse and she was feeling great, so we decided to proceed to the transplant while she was in sCR. We did the transplant in the 10 month after diagnosis and she didn't have any major side effects.

Now we are thinking to proceed to the second in order to have a chance for a long term remission. We talked to a very famous myeloma specialist who told us that we should be faster with the treatment in order the treatment to be successful as the myeloma becomes resistant with time and now the transplant and the consolidation will not be of much benefit.

Any further thoughts on this additional information would be appreciated.

Best regards
Niki