Leukemia Medication Shows Promise
Health physicians have reportedly discovered a new weapon that can be used to fight the oftentimes life-threatening illness known as leukemia. Although the drug was once dismissed as being ineffective for cancer treatment, new findings have revealed that this could just be the medication that helps fight leukemia.
Flavopiridol has shown beneficial results in both phase I and II clinical trials that involved 116 patients who were suffering from advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CCL). Researchers from The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute have been conducting trials and studies on the drug in recent months.
Trial Results Revealed
In an estimated half of the patients involved in the trials, their response to Flavopiridol was supposedly positive. Many of the participants had chromosomal abnormalities that made it unlikely that they would be helped by standard therapies.
In recent years, treatment of this type of leukemia has improved; however, the disease, which affects about 15,000 people each year, is still incurable. It is also the most common type of adult leukemia and a majority of patients suffer significant infections caused by the disease and the treatment given to them.
Medication Background
During the 1980s, Flavopiridol was tested on animals and showed promise as an effective drug to treat leukemia. But when it was given to humans in repeated trials, it was ineffective and eventually researchers forgot all about the medication.
In recent years however, Ohio State researchers discovered that flavopiridol binds to proteins within the human blood, so it was revealed that in the earlier trials, humans were not getting enough of the drug for it to be effective.
"Flavopiridol has bridged the way for several CCL patients to receive a curative stem cell transplant," explains Dr. John Byrd, associate director of translational research and the principal investigator in the phase II trial.
