Tag: Myeloma

June 2013 Lab Values

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Beth Blood Test from June 2013
Blood Test Results from June 2013

 

This is the latest report I have.  I had blood drawn at the beginning of June. You can click on the small image of the report to see it full size.

It indicates that I’m still stable.  From quarter to quarter, there are small changes, but nothing significant.  Sometimes the values go up and sometimes down.  There’s nothing exciting to report this time.

I’m still taking 8 grams of curcumin each day, along with cinnamon, coconut oil, flax oil and krill oil.

I see the oncologist every three months, and have Zometa every three months, too. My bone density is normal.

There’s really not much to talk about, where the myeloma is concerned.  It continues to lurk, without doing anything (that I’m aware of).  It behaves like SMM.

I’ve not had any maintenance therapy since the SCT, which took place at the end of August in 2007.

I wish everyone could have such boring reports!

Here’s the PDF version > PDF Version

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W5 investigates the high cost of Celgene’s Thalidomide

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W5 investigates the high cost of Celgene's Thalidomide
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/w5/pills-patients–profits/#clip281624

Canada’s news program, W5 (which I assume is shorthand for who, what, when, where and why) , did a program called, “Pills Patients & Profits.”  You can see the entire segment on their web site.  Click on the link or image above to watch part 3, which focuses on the cost of thalidomide (Celgene’s Thalomid), which is an important treatment for multiple myeloma.

It’s very informative, so please do watch all four parts.

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Immunoglobulin Profile for June 1, 2009

GENLAB Immunology: Final    06/01/2009 15:03

IMMUNOGLOBULIN PROFILE
                                                             Reference
  IMMUNOGLOBULIN G                  *410         mg/dL       [588-1573]
          TEST REPEATED TO CONFIRM
            NOTE:  African-American reference ranges differ slightly from
                   those listed.  Please call the Immunology Lab at 684-6939
                   for race specific ranges.
  IMMUNOGLOBULIN A                  *432         mg/dL       [46-287]
          TEST REPEATED TO CONFIRM
  IMMUNOGLOBULIN M                  *26          mg/dL       [57-237]
  IMMUNOGLOBULIN E                   30          IU/mL       [4-269]
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The eight lethal cancers

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A blog reader sent this to me, and I wanted to pass it on.

Hi Beth,

I follow your blog and thought you might be interested to know about a new initiative launched by a coalition of patient advocacy organizations during the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).  Led by the International Myeloma Foundation (IMF), MDS Foundation and the Tackle Myeloma Foundation (TMF), they unveiled a patient “Statement of Principles” to address the inequalities in reimbursement of cancer therapies.

Currently, Medicare and private insurance companies require higher deductibles and co-payments for oral drugs than for IV therapies and inpatient procedures.  However, private insurance is regulated at the state level and Oregon, Indiana and Iowa have laws requiring equal coverage with similar legislation pending in several additional states and federal legislation introduced in Congress.

If you’re interested in learning more or signing the petition, you can check out the IMF or MDSF websites.

Best,
Allison

If you go to the IMF’s web site, you can read more about the Cancer Patient Statement of Principles.  This was taken from their web site.

About the eight lethal cancers
Eight forms of cancer, of which multiple myeloma is one, are projected to cause 49% of the 562,340* cancer deaths projected in 2009. For each of these forms of cancer, at least half of the patients diagnosed will die from their cancer within five years. Those cancers are:

Type of cancer

Deaths projected in 2009

New diagnoses projected in 2009

5-year survival rate

Brain cancer

12,920

22,070

35%

Pancreatic cancer

35,240

42,470

5%

Esophageal cancer

14,350

16,470

16%

Liver cancer

18,160

22,620

10%

Lung cancer

159,390

219,440

15%

Multiple myeloma

10,580

20,580

34%

Ovarian cancer

14,600

21,550

45%

Stomach cancer

10,620

21,130

24%

*Source: Cancer Facts & Figures 2009, American Cancer Society, Atlanta. 2009

Click here to support the Cancer Patient Statement of Principles.
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Possible link between formaldehyde exposure and myeloma

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According to a recent article published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Advance Access published online on May 12, 2009, it looks as though exposure to formaldehyde could raise one’s risk of lymphohematopoietic malignancies (blood and lymph cancers).

For an extremely statistical look, read the abstract -> http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/djp096

I had some exposure to formaldehyde during my twenties. Nobody can say for sure if that was the risk factor for me though. I worked around plastics.  A certain type of plastic, called high density polyethylene,  gives off fumes that contain formaldehyde when it’s heated to a high temperature.  We stood around at a factory with melting HDPE around us all the time.

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My Uncle and www.MyelomaForums.com

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All,

My uncle Darryl Ramsey was recently diagnosed with Stage 3 Multiple Myeloma and was told that he has aprox 1 year to live.  However, my uncle feels that Chemo and Radation are a waste of time because he now knows he has been sick with Multiple Myeloma for over 10 years and thinks he is still here today because of the fact that he was the type of person to refuse going to doctors and he for years started jucing and eating better every day.  Like most people the first thing my uncle did was a Google search and he found nothing but grimm information.  I started www.myelomaforums.com because I wanted him and others like him to have access to information from other people so that him and others like him know about all the best treatments and have access to all the answers.  However, the hardest part of getting a sucessful forum started is getting people and content.  I am here to ask everyone to please sign up with www.myelomaforums.com as well because the more your stories are out there the more people we can help.

Thanks,

Andy

P.S. Beth your’re a sweetheart and thanks for the kind email and willingness to help.

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Green tea polyphenols block the anticancer effects of bortezomib and other boronic acid-based proteasome inhibitors

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This caught my eye because I’ve been on Velcade before and never gave a second thought to whether or not I should not be consuming green tea/green tea products.

Blood First Edition Paper, prepublished online February 3, 2009; DOI 10.1182/blood-2008-07-171389.

Submitted July 28, 2008
Accepted January 12, 2009

Encouse B. Golden, Philip Y. Lam, Adel Kardosh, Kevin J. Gaffney, Enrique Cadenas, Stan G. Louie, Nicos A. Petasis, Thomas C. Chen, and Axel H. Schonthal*

Department of Pathology, University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine (KSOM), Los Angeles, CA, United States
Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology, USC School of Pharmacy (SoP), Los Angeles, CA, United States
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, USC KSOM, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Department of Chemistry, USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy, USC SoP, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Department of Neurosurgery, USC KSOM, Los Angeles, CA, United States

* Corresponding author; email: schontha@usc.edu.

The anticancer potency of green tea and its individual components is being intensely investigated, and some cancer patients already self-medicate with this ‘miracle herb’ in hopes of augmenting the anticancer outcome of their chemotherapy. Bortezomib (Velcade®) is a proteasome inhibitor in clinical use for multiple myeloma. Here, we investigated whether the combination of these compounds would yield increased antitumor efficacy in multiple myeloma and glioblastoma cell lines in vitro and in vivo. Unexpectedly, we discovered that various green tea constituents, in particular (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and other polyphenols with 1,2-benzenediol moieties, effectively prevented tumor cell death induced by bortezomib in vitro and in vivo. This pronounced antagonistic function of EGCG was only evident with boronic acid-based proteasome inhibitors (bortezomib, MG-262, PS-IX), but not with several non-boronic acid proteasome inhibitors (MG-132, PS-I, nelfinavir). EGCG directly reacted with bortezomib and blocked its proteasome inhibitory function; as a consequence, bortezomib could not trigger endoplasmic reticulum stress or caspase-7 activation, and did not induce tumor cell death. Taken together, our results indicate that green tea polyphenols may have the potential to negate the therapeutic efficacy of bortezomib and suggest that consumption of green tea products may be contraindicated during cancer therapy with bortezomib.

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2009 Myeloma update

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I don’t have a lot to blog about here because my myeloma has been stable since last fall. There’s not much there at all.  If you don’t have myeloma, I have only a little bit more than you do.

These labs were done 12/08/2008


IFE SERUM
(2) MONOCLONAL IgA-LAMBDAS DETECTED BY IFE.
SPE M-SPIKE 1                      0.17        g/dL
SPE M-SPIKE 2                      0.12        g/dL

IG FREE LIGHT CHAINS SERUM
                                                         Reference
  IG FREE LIGHT CHAIN KAPPA         *0.16mg/dL       [0.33-1.94]
  IG FREE LIGHT CHAIN LAMBDA         1.85mg/dL       [0.57-2.63]
  IG FLC KAPPA/LAMBDA RATIO         *0.09            [0.26-1.65]

IMMUNOGLOBULIN PROFILE
IMMUNOGLOBULIN G                  *374mg/dL       [588-1573]
TEST REPEATED TO CONFIRM
IMMUNOGLOBULIN A                  *415mg/dL       [46-287]
TEST REPEATED TO CONFIRM
IMMUNOGLOBULIN M                  *31mg/dL       [57-237]
TEST REPEATED TO CONFIRM
IMMUNOGLOBULIN E                   13 IU/mL       [4-269]
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