[Greg H]

Hi Hopeful!

Thanks much. I am beginning to wonder, like you, whether Trisomy 8 is, in fact, often related to some immune system issues in the marrow. One person's experience doesn't really count as research, but the history of my disease so far may suggest that.

My first BMB showed only a Chromosome 1 problem, in about half of the cells. When I had a repeat BMB a couple of months later at a different lab, I had still had the Chromosome 1 problem, but FISH analysis (which is more sensitive) picked up about 5% Trisomy 8.

Three months later, I again had about half of my cells with dup1q, but now most of those also had Trisomy 8.

My most recent BMB -- six months after Campath knocked my T-cells flat -- showed 85% dup1q but only 15% Trisomy 8.

In other words, it seems like the Trisomy 8 cropped up after the dupq1, expanded rapidly, and then declined under immunosuppressive therapy. A big caveat here: all of this except the original 5% +8 is based on 20-cell cytogenetic counts, which aren't very statistically significant.

Still, if I were a betting man, I'd say what happened is this. I developed a dupq1 abnormality. My T-Cells started attacking those malignant stem cells. That immune system war created a +8 abnormality that expanded rapidly. The Campath shut down the war, and the +8 subsided. Unfortunately, with no T-cells attacking, the dup1q was free to expand.

That's completely guess work on my part and could be completely wrong. But we humans like a story with a plot and that's the best one I can make up right now.

The plotline might change once I have the results of another BMB with FISH. I just wish NIH had done FISH last October and this May, so we'd have a better read on whether my storyline is correct.

Take Care!

Greg