My 27yo girlfriend of 12 years was diagnosed with leukaemia in february of this year. Initially she was told she had AML, however after futher tests this was changed to AML philadelphia +. Subsequently she has been diagnosed with CML, which they believe went straight into blast crisis phase.
The whole case is unusual and worrying. she exhibited virtually no symptoms before admittance. no enlarged spleen, no night sweats or excessive tiredness. In december we both went on a 7 hour walk around london and I was more tired than she was! A blood test taken 6 months before showed no irregularities.
From Day 1 the Heamatology staff were pushing for a bone marrow transplant (which seems to be their speciality and preferrred choice of treatment). although no sibling match is available as neither he brother or sister were a match.
I am worried that other possible treatments are not being pursued as potential alternatives.
I also found out that after 1 round of chemo along with GlIVEC, she was in complete remission with a PCR of zero (undetecable).
I find it hard to accept that I must have over my childhood sweetheart to an extremely risky procedure, with questionable success rates. I am worried about the effects of this treatment (particularly the Total body Irradiation), which will leave her infertile and could even cause further cancers!
Surely this type of procedure should be a last chance effort when all else fails. Also with the many advance in molecular medicines (e.g dasinitib etc) i believe we should attempt to keep her in remission, rather than take a 1:5 cahnce of BMT related mortality.
Any advice would be welcome,
thanks,
mark
