Today's Daily Mail

I feel that the above mentioned article is irresponsible reporting.
I am extremely pleased that the lady in question has done well and it is also very encouraging to see that cord blood transplants are becoming available in the UK for those who have no other avenues. However, we are not told how this lady came to have a cord blood transplant other than the fact she had no other donor. Seeing that Glivec/Imatinib is frontline therapy for CML it was quite shocking that this was not mentioned. A newly dx patient reading this article would see the next step as severe chemotherapy followed by a transplant - no mention of drug therapy which is as we all know extremely successful for the majority of patients. Professor Russell also made no reference to drug therapy for CML ...... I acknowledge that this article was to report a successful cord blood transplant but the introduction should have mentioned that this was pretty much a last resort after failing various drug therapies and possibly the lady concerned was diagnosed in blast crisis .... so much not told and so misleading.\

Perhaps a few words to the reporter (not incidentally my wife who has the same name) would be in order.

Steven

P.S. Last week I was told that my PCR level at 0.028 was the lowest I have had since DX 4.5 years ago.