• Question: If someone under 65 got myeloma, would a stem cell transplant have a 100% success rate?

    Asked by evilevo to Tim on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Tim Millar

      Tim Millar answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Myeloma has been treated with stem cell transplants with resonable success. However its not a cure, the average time to relapse (how long it takes for the cancer to come back) is about 3 years and there are real problems with the transplantation process too. Other drugs are being added to help with the process like thalidomide, and these seem to increase the time it takes before relapse.

      Because this is reasonably new science, there are a lot of issues to sort out and quite often, these new techniques are carried out on the patients who have failed all other therapies, meaning they are difficult cases, so the sucess rate may be lower thanit could be with “healthier” patients.

      Part of the ethics of allowing new treatments is that it must be better than the gold standard therapy and they are often used in combination. Hopefully this area of research will expand and show better results in the near future.

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