Chemotherapy for one type of leukaemia could be improved by giving patients a drug currently used in the treatment of iron overload, new research has shown. Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is an aggressive cancer that stops healthy blood cell production. Chemotherapy is the standard treatment, but improvements are needed as the five-year survival rate in patients older than 60 is only 5-15 percent. The findings, from Imperial College London, showed that special regions of blood vessels where blood stem cells -- that generate billions of new cells every day of our life -- reside are the hardest hit by leukaemia.
When these are overtaken by leukaemia cells, the stem cells are lost and production of healthy blood is significantly reduced, causing anaemia, infection, and bleeding in patients. It allows the disease to progress as well as affects the success of chemotherapy. In the study,…
