3 replies to this topic

[Tedsey]

In http://www.medicalne...cles/233878.php "Horwitz said the GATA2 mutations in the DNA sit next to an amino acid that is found to be faulty in some patients with terminal chronic myeloid leukemia."

What is terminal chronic myeloid leukemia?  Is it blast crisis?  I have never heard CML described like this.

And being "terminal", does that mean a BMT cannot work?

Just wondering.  If anyone could explain this, I would be most grateful.

Teds

P.S. I would rather play this thing out and try and fail the drugs without knowing I had this gene up front (unless it would determine that I needed a different and available therapy that would work).  Hope is a necessity when you have cancer.  I also get that this is just what these researchers have found for now and are trying to understand what it fully means.  Knowing you carry a deadly gene is no consolation if there is no successful treatment or cure.  But I suppose you would not want to pass this to offspring.  Nevertheless, it may be rarely inherited.  Like, most of the world does not have leukemia.  It is still a relatively rare condition, even for the elderly.  Sorry, just rambling.

[CallMeLucky]

My understanding of this is that the research was pertaining to AML.  When they speak of "Terminal CML" in this article, my belief is that they are speaking of Blast Crisis, which is very similar to AML.

[Trey]

The article is about AML and MDS, not about CML at all.  But let's look at what it presented, even if unworthy of our attention.  But let me start by saying this this is why I don't like to see people posting raw articles about some guy who looked at a few people in a couple families and drew a conclusion about the entire universe.  It may not even be true.  There are way too many variables involved.

First, the article has nothing to do with CML, so I don't know why it was even posted here to stir people up about nothing.  It is about AML and MDS, so it does not even apply here.  You said there was a mention of "terminal chronic myeloid leukemia", although I did not see it in the article you posted, but maybe it was in another one.  Anyway, that would be Blast Phase CML that looks like AML leukemia at the end stage, and there are many genetic mutations which are possible at that final stage.  But that has nothing to do with the origins of CML.

You also asked: "And being "terminal", does that mean a BMT cannot work?"  No; but if a person waits too long, the odds of working go down.  But that is not just because of this GATA2 gene since there are many variables once Blast Phase occurs.  But people still have successful BMTs in Blast Phase.

So this whole thing has nothing to do with the origins of CML or the liklihood of progression or whether there will be a Phil sighting today.  It just does not belong here, just as many recently posted articles do not have anything to do with anything useful.

[rct]

I'll see Treys' grumpiness and up the ante:  Most of this crap is to keep people making way too much money from having to actually get a real job, and stay in "research" for another grant cycle.

Imagine my surprise to see that a primary funder of it is a company that develops and markets various medical tests!  Shocker!

rct