On 5/22/2007 Michelle13 wrote:
Velcade is not a medicine of last resort anymore. I was diagnosed March 2nd 2007 and my first four rounds of chemo were doxil, velcade, and dex. The combo worked beautifully and I am now disease-free. When they found the mm my b2m was almost 9 and my bone marrow was over 90% cancer. Now they can't find it. I'm going to have an allo transplant in June while the cancer is gone and hopefully it will stay "gone". Oh, they used this combo of chemo on me because 1- I'm young (43), and 2- because I have the mm that is from chromosomal 13 damage/and have several translocations/and is bence-jones light chain. Guess this chemo works better on this kind of mm. From what I can see, things are changing fast when it comes to mm and treatments.
Hi Michelle,
Actually they recommend Velcade after you have had one treatment that has not worked. I have been with Velcade since the beginning trials and nobody at Dana Farber Cancer Center has ever mentioned it being a last resort thing. I do know that Velcade is being used along with other drugs which enhance ability to heal. There does seem to be alot of rumors about Velcade and I would say talk to an expert myeloma oncologist and don't listen to people that have only heard these things by hearsay. There are so many options right now for treatment, clinical trials are the way to go in my opinion, I am on a new drug which is in phase 1 and i have hardly any side effects and my M spike has dropped from 1.1 to .95 in just 2 three week cycles.
Where there's life there is HOPE