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Tuesday, August 23, 2011, 2:07 am [EST] Message: Within the last 20 years, the Arkansas Treatment has been developed for patients suffering from Multiple Myeloma. An acquaintance of the author's, who was treated with this chemotherapy regimen several years before his own diagnosis, had to travel to Arkansas to receive the treatment. After being diagnosed in June, 2008 with multiple myeloma, the author was able to receive this chemotherapy regimen locally near his home in the Upstate of South Carolina. This treatment uses several different drugs during chemotherapy, followed by an autologous stem cell transplant. The full treatment actually calls for a tandem stem cell transplant (two in succession.) Whereas years ago, the only treatment for multiple myeloma was the drug that directly targets the cancerous cells (and then also targets lots of good cells as well), the several drugs used in this treatment all target the abilities of the cancerous cells to reproduce and encourage the body's normal disease fighting cells to eliminate them. This treatment uses thalidomide as the main, cancer-fighting, oral drug, plus a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs which include bortezomib, cyclophosphamide, etoposide, cisplatin, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone. A variety of other drugs such as antibiotics, to help the body's impaired immune system, anti-nausea drugs, and pain killers (steroids) are administered concurrently. With the older treatments directly targeting the cancerous cells, the life expectancies of multiple myeloma patients were on the order of two to four years following diagnosis. Since those drugs adversely affected many good body cells as well as the cancerous cells, the patients' bodies took a major hit every time the drug was administered. A high dose of that same drug (or similar ones) is part of the stem cell transplant procedure. Following the administration of the high dose drug, the author's white blood cell count was near zero. Fortunately, the stem cell transplant immediately followed the administration of the high dose, so his body was able to recover from the high dose by creating new stem cells and new good blood cells. From: Health Browser Info: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1

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