View Single Post
  #2  
Old Thu Mar 6, 2008, 01:54 AM
Ruth Cuadra Ruth Cuadra is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 618
Hi, Marilu.

Welcome to Marrowforums. Sorry you have to be here learning about how to cope with your mother's MDS diagnosis, but I hope we can help.

With a 35-pound weight loss and sleeping most of the day, it seems to me her doctors would want to do more than wait another 3 months to see what happens. Although hemoglobin of 10.3 is not desperately low, each person is different and their tolerance for low blood levels varies. Has she been transfused at all? Can you ask the doctors what they will do in 3 months if nothing changes? If they have a plan, ask why they have to wait and cannot start to treat your mother now.

Revlimid is one possibility for treating MDS, particularly for patients who have the -5q chromosome abnormality. Do you know any of the details of your mother's bone marrow biopsy results to know if she has this as part of her MDS diagnosis? Other drug treatments include Vidaza and Dacogen.

It's important to have your mother treated by a hematologist who has experience with MDS. If you live near a major cancer treatment center or a university teaching hospital (see the list of Treatment Centers on our Medical Resources page), it would be worth contacting them for a second, confirming opinion about the plan her current doctors are suggesting. It may be possible to get another opinion with her existing test results if she is too weak to travel to another center.

Hope this helps. Let us know what questions you have.

Regards,
Ruth Cuadra
__________________
Diagnosed AA 10/96, MDS/RA 6/98, MUD/BMT 10/6/98
Reply With Quote