Hi Greg,
You do ask interesting questions! Is one cell line with multiple aberrations better or worse than multiple cell lines with an isolated aberration?
As far as I understand the important issue is how dangerous the chromosome aberrations are – will they take over rapidly so we soon only will have damaged cells.
In patients with CML where they have got much better treatment than for MDS, they are analyzing
minimal residual disease (MRD) in the bone marrow after treatment with Gleevec, Tasigna, Sprycel and now Omapro. They control that quite often because if the MRD is too high in a patient treated with the first drug, Gleevec, the patient should try for example Tasigna instead.
In MDS they are examining new mutations - for example in the TET2 gene - and analyze how many % of the bone marrow cells that have this mutation:
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v41/n7/abs/ng.391.html
I am sure that you have read all about the prognosis for patients with your chromosome aberrations so I won’t refer to an article about that but there are many articles about how Vidaza and Dacogen may work.
Here is one about the two drugs that
“lead to degradation of the main DNA methyltransferases, and continued replication results in passive demethylation that eventually results in reactivated gene expression. Activated gene expression, in turn, has effects on multiple different pathways, each of which could contribute to a clinical response.”http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.or...5/12/3938.full
Kind regards
Birgitta-A
71 yo, dx MDS Interm-1 May 2006, chromosome aberrations: del12p and -X, very severe fibrosis with pancytopenia, tx dependent since dx, Desferal and Exjade for iron overload, Neupogen 3 injections/week for low WBCs, Thalidomide and Prednisone for fibrosis, still asymptomatic