Our Girls Came to Visit Maw and Paw a Few Minutes Ago!

This mother/baby have been visiting us for a few weeks now.  They're slowly getting closer and closer to the house, which delights us.

I was tickled to get these shots today.  They were hanging out at the cremated burial sites of my parents.... Dad's ashes were buried at the Live Oak, and mom's are at the Redbud Tree with the birdbath.

A fun story-  back in '89, my brother was in town for a visit.  We had everybody over here.  Dad was a stroke victim and confined to a wheelchair.  Ric wheeled him outside and said, "Oh Dad!  Wouldn't it be neat if a deer came out of the woods right now?".  Guess what happened immediately?   YEP!  Maybe an ancestor of these guys!  One never knows!

Researchers say therapy improves stem cell engraftment in umbilical cord blood transplant recipients

 "There is a significant need to improve the speed and quality of engraftment of cord-derived stem cells," says trial leader Corey Cutler, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women's Hospital. "FT1050 has shown the ability in preclinical research to activate hematopoetic [blood-forming] stem cells so they engraft more quickly and with a higher degree of success."

The goal of the phase I trial was to assess the safety of FT1050-treated cord blood cells in adult patients receiving umbilical cord blood stem cell transplants, and determine if the treated cells accelerate engraftment. In the 12 patients who participated in the trial, engraftment occurred approximately three to four days faster than happens with standard cord blood cells. Levels of white blood cells known as neutrophils returned to normal in the patients after a median of 17.5 days, similar to the rate in standard stem cell transplants. Side effects of the FT1050-treated cord blood cells were minimal. In none of the study patients did the stem cells fail to engraft.

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Inside the Strange Science of Cord Blood Banking

“If you have the money, and you want to bank your child’s own cord blood, you’re essentially investing in one of two things,” said Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, director of the Duke Pediatric Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program. “One, the possibility that another child in your family will need that cord blood, and that it matches. Or two, that somewhere in the future there will be new developments and new uses for your child’s cord blood — say in regenerative medicine or cell therapy. But to date, none of those exist.”

While a few rare diseases, such as multiple myeloma and lymphoma, use stem cells taken from a patient’s own body, the chances of a child having these are vanishingly small. The chances are so small, in fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend private cord blood storing. Parents should only consider it, they say, if a family member has a disease that could be treated with stem cell transplants.

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This sounds like a reasonably priced "insurance policy" to me.  We live in amazing times with new medical developments constantly!

Stem cell and regenerative medicine's future: WOW!!!

The video clip opens with Wilmut referring to Shinya Yamanaka, the Japanese scientist whose team was the first to make human IPS cells. These cells act much like embryonic stem cells, but can be created from adult skin cells. They thus avoid the ethical issue many have with developing therapies made from human embryos.

In addition, IPS cells hold the potential for personalized therapy. A patient with a damaged spinal cord, for example, could receive a transplant of new spinal cord tissue, grown from his own cells. Likewise, a patient with Parkinson's disease could receive new dopamine-producing brain cells. (In the case of inherited disease, researchers are investigating whether these cells could be corrected with gene therapy before being transplanted back into patients).

Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/blogsnew/business/scitech/stem-cell-and-regenerative-medicine-s-future-video-from-ian/article_6f87eb38-3405-5ffd-9fec-d565555e1eba.html#ixzz1fjCwbGKY

Our Wonderful Holiday Season Continues!

Hi gang....

It's been another great week.  Dom is feeling and looking GREAT.  There IS light at the end of this Myeloma Tunnel.  Hang in there and be tough, guys.

Earlier in the week, Dom ended up with some type of upper respiratory crud  that rubbed off on me for a couple of days.... it didn't last long for either of us.

We celebrated 23 years of marriage on Friday.  Or as Dominic says, "23 LONG, LONG years".   ;)  Had a couple of nice filets, a baked potato and a bottle of bubbly to celebrate.  Very pleasant.

Dom caught this sunrise this morning.  Thought I'd share it with you.  Note to self:  "FIX DOMs CAMERA DATE SETTING!"

A Useful Myeloma Staging Chart

Multiple Myeloma: A Clinical Overview

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant, progressive plasma cell tumor characterized by overproduction of monoclonal immunoglobulins, osteolytic bone lesions, renal disease, and immunodeficiency.[1] Before the 1980s, patients with MM experienced a slow, progressive decline in quality of life until death approximately 2 years after diagnosis,[2] but the advent of high-dose alkylating agents increased the probability of remission and prolonged overall and event-free survival. During the past decade, important advances have been made in understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of MM, leading to the development of even more effective treatment strategies,[3,4] including stem cell transplantation, the immunomodulators thalidomide(Drug information on thalidomide) and lenalidomide, and the first-generation proteasome inhibitor bortezomib(Drug information on bortezomib).

Currently, MM is an active field of research for novel pharmacotherapies, with a number of agents in phase II or III of clinical development. This supplement describes several therapeutic advances in the context of the underlying molecular mechanisms. The objective of this article is to put these advances into the current clinical context by providing an overview of the epidemiology, etiology, and clinical features of MM, along with the prognosis for patients with this disease.

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For DETROIT area MM patients.....

"We are pleased to welcome Karmanos Cancer Institute to the MMRC's esteemed clinical network," said Beverly Harrison, VP, Clinical Development. "Like all MMRC Member Institutions, Karmanos was selected to join this exclusive network based on its outstanding reputation for clinical excellence, its demonstrated commitment to rigorous research, and its true spirit of collaboration and team-science. We have no doubt that Karmanos will prove to be an invaluable asset in our efforts to rapidly shepherd the next generation of treatments through the MMRC."

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Multipe Myeloma patient runs marathons!

Saw this on HLN this morning.

In case you missed it, here's a link to the video:

Video Link

Salvage transplant safe, feasible for multiple myeloma

Salvage autologous hematopoietic cell transplant should be considered for patients with multiple myeloma who have relapsed after initial transplant, according to the results of a restrospective analysis.

The study included data from 44 patients with multiple myeloma who had undergone a second salvage autologous hematopoietic cell transplant between 1992 to 2008.

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Federal ban on selling organs does not apply to sick children who need bone marrow transplants to survive,

A federal ban on selling organs does not apply to sick children who need bone marrow transplants to survive, the 9th Circuit ruled Thursday, finding that modern technology has made the once painful and invasive procedure little different than donating blood.
   
The ruling gives new life to the California-based nonprofit MoreMarrowDonors.org, which has stumbled in its plan to offer donors $3,000 "awards," such as scholarships or housing allowances, because bone marrow is classified as an organ that can't be legally bought or sold under the National Organ Transplant Act.
   
The nonprofit and a group of plaintiffs who have personally been affected by the ban challenged that classification as irrational and unconstitutional given a new, less invasive method of extracting marrow cells that has been developed over in the last 20 years.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/12/01/41879.htm