[Hopeful]

Originally Posted by Greg H

My first BMB showed only a Chromosome 1 problem, in about half of the cells. When I had a repeat BMB a couple of months later at a different lab, I had still had the Chromosome 1 problem, but FISH analysis (which is more sensitive) picked up about 5% Trisomy 8.

Three months later, I again had about half of my cells with dup1q, but now most of those also had Trisomy 8.

My most recent BMB -- six months after Campath knocked my T-cells flat -- showed 85% dup1q but only 15% Trisomy 8.

In other words, it seems like the Trisomy 8 cropped up after the dupq1, expanded rapidly, and then declined under immunosuppressive therapy. A big caveat here: all of this except the original 5% +8 is based on 20-cell cytogenetic counts, which aren't very statistically significant.

Still, if I were a betting man, I'd say what happened is this. I developed a dupq1 abnormality. My T-Cells started attacking those malignant stem cells. That immune system war created a +8 abnormality that expanded rapidly. The Campath shut down the war, and the +8 subsided. Unfortunately, with no T-cells attacking, the dup1q was free to expand.

That seems like a very logical argument to me. Since the trisomy 8 mutation is in the same cells with the dup1 mutatation, further immune suppression seems risky. In retrospect, it seems like the dup1 mutation must be controlled first.