6 replies to this topic

[GerryL]

Treating mouse bone (blue) with parathyroid hormone makes the bone marrow environment inhospitable to chronic myelogenous leukemia stem cells (red) by activating bone-creating cells (green) that release the protein TGF beta 1. Image: Daniela Krause and Charles Lin http://hms.harvard.e...ukemia-10-31-13

and an abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/24162813

[Trey]

This makes a lot of sense.  The cure will come in pieces like this.  Force the leukemic stem cells into the open where they can be killed.

[Rissa]

Interesting article. It does give hope.  Thank you for sharing.

[Susan61]

That makes me wonder about my PTH.  I have it checked periodically, and actually I am way overdo to get it checked.  Mine is always running very high out of normal range, and the doctor seems to feel its due to my kidney functions being out of range all the time.  I have gone through the scan for the Parathyroid looking for a tumor etc., but they found nothing.

Made me wonder if the high PTH could be helping the Leukemia?

I just had my PCR test done, and Thank God it was stil at 0.000.  Just hope they find that cure soon so we can all get off these TKI drugs.

Susan

[GerryL]

Hi Susan,

Maybe I read the article incorrectly, but they appeared to be adding PTH to the mice which in turn reduced the number of mice with CML, so it is a good thing if you have a high PTH level. I'm sure Trey will correct me if I'm wrong.

[Trey]

Right.  It makes me wonder if TKI drugs might work in several ways at the same time, not just BCR-ABL inhibition.  They also change the body in unintended ways that make the host (us) less hospitable (not a bad thing, Miss Manners) to leukemic stem cells (uninvited guests).  One such way is TKI elevation of PTH, which may actually drive CML stem cells out into the open for the TKI to kill them.  A bird dog with a shotgun.  I like it.  Maybe TKI drugs can cure CML.... 

[GerryL]

I guess with the kidney dysfunction, Susan's doctors wouldn't have looked at Gleevec possibly contributing to the high levels of PTH.

http://bloodjournal..../115/4/766.full