Hi – hoping for some further information on tandem transplants as this has been mentioned as a possibility for my husband.
He was diagnosed with MM in February 2021 and had a high presence in his bones and 9 compression fractures in his back. He had two operations on his back prior to starting chemo and this helped enormously with his pain and mobility. His paraproteins were just over 40 and he had several multiple pockets of Myeloma and after 6 cycles of VTD they had come down to 5.2. They had jumped up to 10 four weeks later when he had the stem cell harvesting, and three weeks later when he went in for a transplant they had jumped to 17 so the transplant was postponed. A week later he started the first cycle of DTPace and they had jumped to 20. Following the two DTPace treatments they had come down to 4.2 and the light chains were normal and he had the SCT on the 23 February. When he was first diagnosed his bone marrow biopsy showed he was an intermediate risk patient. Just prior to discharge the possibility of a tandem transplant was mentioned but I’m guessing until we get to 100 days or thereabouts and all depending what his bloods are showing at this point Whether this will be recommended. It was a bit unexpected and having googled it and realising they are normally done just 3 months following the initial transplant, we are still trying to process it. We know everyone has blips on their Myeloma journey and we haven’t, as yet, had the opportunity to discuss the pros and cons with our consultant but would love to hear from people who have either had this transplant or have any more information about it. Also, we haven’t met anyone who had to have the DTPace immediately prior to SCT so again would love to hear from you. I’m struggling a bit at the moment trying to be supportive and positive but feeling a bit overwhelmed and frightened by it all. Many thanks. Caroline
