Treatment Boosts Survival Rate for People With Amyloidosis


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- Treatment Boosts Survival Rate for People With Amyloidosis

- Chemotherapy plus stem cell transplantation combat fatal disease

TUESDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDayNews) -- Treating primary amyloidosis patients with high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem-cell transplantation increased survival rates from one year to nearly five years.

And many people who received the treatment experienced a complete remission of the disease, says a Boston University School of Medicine study that appears in the Jan. 20 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

People with amyloidosis experience extracellular accumulation of chemically diverse proteins in various tissues and organs. This results in progressive disability and death. There is no known cause. Left untreated, people with amyloidosis usually die within a year.

In this study, researchers reviewed the results of 312 people with AL amyloidosis who were treated with high-dose melphalan stem-cell transplantation, which was pioneered at Boston University School of Medicine in 1994.

Half the patients survived more than 4.5 years, and 40 percent experienced complete remission after treatment. Of those who remained in complete remission one year after treatment, 8 percent had relapses within two years, but none had relapses after two years.

"Patients who receive this treatment may not only improve their quality of life and length of survival, but may also experience a complete remission of this devastating disease," study lead author Dr. Martha Skinner, a professor of medicine, says in a prepared statement.

More information

Here's where you can learn more about amyloidosis.

- SOURCE: Boston University, news release, Jan. 19, 2004

- This is a story from HealthDay, a service of ScoutNews, LLC.

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