Don’t let age bar you from having a blood stem cell transplant
December 9, 2008 by Marijke Durning, RN
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
According to a press release issued by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Older Age Doesn’t Affect Survival after Bone Marrow Transplant, if you’re over 65 years old and you have acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), you could do just as well as younger patients who receive the transplant.
In a new study, researchers looked at 551 patients who had transplants for MDS and 565 for AML. They found that age had no statistically significant impact on transplant-related mortality, relapse, leukemia-free survival or overall survival.
There was a difference in approaches, however. Traditionally, to prepare for such a transplant, patients are given very high intense doses of chemotherapy to "kill" their own blood cell supply. In the older patients, less intense chemo is used because the stronger chemo was too hard on them.
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Tags: cancer blog, chemotherapy, blood stem cell transplant, acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome
