This was at the cancer.gov site.
It refers to the reports we’ve been reading that tell us SCT will buy us time.
Limitations: For most, if not all patients with multiple myeloma, cautioned Wilson, high-dose therapy with stem-cell transplantation is not a cure. The treatment has risks. In the short term, patients who undergo the procedure are at increased risk for infection and bleeding. Longer term, they have a higher risk for problems such as infertility, cataracts, and new cancers.
Other new therapies with fewer side effects, including the drugs thalidomide and velcade, may be equally effective at extending survival in patients with multiple myeloma, and will need to be studied in this setting, said Wilson.
?High-dose therapy with stem-cell transplantation may be appropriate for otherwise healthy patients who want aggressive treatment,? he added. ?However, I would not blindly recommend it as first-line treatment for all patients with multiple myeloma.?