The following report by medical editor Marilyn Brooks first aired on Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m. on Jan. 4, 2006.

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The drug is called revlimid, and doctors say it offers new hope and a clinical benefit to some patients who depend on blood transfusions because of a disorder called myelodysplastic syndromes.

Handmade candy is George Snyder's business.

But there's nothing sweet about what life has dealt him.

"Your life changes a lot when someone tells you that your life expectancy isn't as long as you thought it was going to be," said Snyder.

Snyder suffers from myelodysplastic syndrome -- or MDS -- a group of deadly blood disorders caused when bone marrow makes abnormal blood cells.

According to statistics, roughly 20,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

Patients suffer anemia, weakness and fatigue.

Some types convert into acute leukemia and the patient dies within a year -- others die of iron overload and infections within three to nine years.

There is no cure, and for certain patients with a certain subtype called 5q minus, they need blood transfusions every two weeks.

That has just changed thanks to a newly approved oral therapy that actually treats the blood disease at its source.

Revlimid is a wonder drug for 75 percent of MDS patients with 5-q minus. Doctors say the drug can return red cells and platelets to near normal levels, meaning two-thirds of the patients no longer need transfusions.

"The marrows often return to normal. The dysplastic cells disappear and, about half the time, the 5-q minus chromosome abnormality disappears," said Dr. Richard Shadduck, Director of the West Penn Hospital Cancer Center.

There is some bad news, as well.

Revlimid can lower white cell counts and lead to infection.

It is also frightfully expensive -- $5,000-$6,000 a month.

Still, if you've had more than 200 transfusions in four years and now no longer need them, "You have your life back," said MDS patient Livia Bebing.

Doctors hesitate to use the word cure -- they're more comfortable with the term "long remission."