On Monday, Tony's bone marrow donor (from 10 years ago), Kevin, made his lymphocyte donation from Germany. They then overnighted the cells, and Huntsman received them on Tuesday.
We went down to the hospital on Wednesday and met with the transplant team. They went over the DLI process with us again, and we signed paperwork to give the doctors permission to treat Tony with this treatment. They took lymphocytes (white blood cells) from Kevin and these cells should boost Tony's immune response to the cancer cells. His most recent bone marrow biopsy showed only 0.3% blasts (He had 79% blasts back in February when he was re-diagnosed). The lymphocytes should be able to fight off the low percentage of blasts. There are, of course, some risks involved, but this treatment comes with far less risk than a second bone marrow transplant.
We will go down to Huntsman tomorrow (Friday) for his first DLI treatment. They will do 2 or 3 rounds of the DLI depending on how his body responds to the cells. The dose of Lymphocytes gets higher for each cycle. If he shows any signs of Graft vs. Host disease (GVHD) then they will stop the treatment.
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