According to research from the Moores Cancer Center at the University if California, San Diego, clinical trials are currently underway for a new novel leukemia therapy. The therapy reportedly focuses on increasing the immune system so it can more effectively combat a difficult-to-treat form of leukemia.

This new form of therapy is supposedly going to start being offered to patients who have chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and whose cancer isn’t responding to other more standard forms of treatment.

How the Treatment Will Work

In the clinical trial, patients will receive a vaccine of a molecule that has been found to have immune-boosting capabilities, known as ISF35. This vaccine is then followed by a three course treatment of rituximab, which is a monoclonal antibody, and two additional chemotherapy drugs. This trial has been deemed as being Phase I of the treatment, which means that it is aimed at testing the safety of the combination of all of these medications and treatments together.

"This approach – activating immune cells followed by chemotherapy – may lead to new strategies that could be applied to other cancers," explains Januario E. Castro, M.D., assistant clinical professor of medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and the Moores UCSD Cancer Center, who has served as the lead of the research team.

This treatment is thought to be the ideal approach doctors have been seeking to target cancer cells and activate the immune system. It can reportedly do so by making the leukemia B cells, which are cancerous, more visible. In turn, the immune system will be able to easily find and effectively eliminate the cancer cells.

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