Multiple myeloma (also known as Kahler’s disease), a malignant form of blood cancer, can be treated effectively with a combination of the drug thalidomide and stem cell transplants.
However, according to Arienne van Marion in her doctoral thesis, this can lead to life-threatening problems involving blood clots. In Kahler's disease, plasma cells in the blood divide in an uncontrolled fashion. Thalidomide is better known in Europe as Softenon, which pregnant women used in the 1950s and 60s as a sleeping pill but which later was found to cause deformities in the fetus. Because it inhibits the growth of blood vessels essential to tumor growth, thalidomide is making a comeback as an anti-tumor drug.
Van Marion received her PhD from Utrecht University on October 5. The title of her thesis is, “Different aspects of thalidomide treatment and stem cell transplantation in multiple myeloma patients.”