[madubois63]

8 or 10 years ago, some oncologists were using Autologous (using the patients own stem cells) bone marrow transplants as a first line treatment for inflammatory bc. They found that many of the patients didn't do so well. Like Joan, I have a friend that survived and has been cancer free 10 years now. But she is one of the very few that made it. When I was diagnosed with IBC, transplant was not an option. When I relapsed, I looked in to getting a transplant and was told by several hopsitals that I wasn't eligable. It was exlained to me yesterday (and my sive mind has already forgotten most of the details) why they do not use transplant for bc but for leukemia. It has something to do with the graft (the new tranplanted cells) verses disease effect that happens. The graft doesn't attack solid tumors that occur with bc. In leukemia, the cancer is of the blood and the blood is pretty much being replaced. Reactivating graft verses host disease in order to fight my latest relapse of bc was thrown out there as an idea for treatment, but it is VERY dangerous because I already had severe gvh of the liver (that almost killed me). I just don't see this method as being an "easy" treatment for bc. I repeat, introducing the Par4 gene in to the system may be the answer to a cure, but the method of introducing it in to the system really needs to be rethought. Nothing about bc treatments are easy, but in my opinion leukemia treatments are much more difficult and dangerous. I understand that this is all prliminary, but I just wouldn't put my faith in to this as being the cure at least not in our lifetime. JMO