Fresh weapon in leukaemia battle

Conventional treatment does not always work

A new leukaemia treatment could offer a lifeline for people who fail to respond to conventional therapy.

Pharmaceutical company Schering Health Care claims the drug is targeted at the most common form of the illness, which mainly affects people aged over 50 years.

It is the first monoclonal antibody to be approved and licensed for the treatment of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (B-CLL) - an incurable condition which affects more than 2,000 people in Britain every year.

We welcome the development of another weapon in the fight

Leukaemia Research Fund

Conventional anti-cancer drugs have proved largely ineffective in combating the illness as they destroy healthy cells as well as cancerous ones.

The body's immune system is unable to distinguish between the two.

The new treatment is more discriminating as it has the ability to highlight the cancerous cells to the immune system which is then able to mop them up while leaving the healthy ones alone.

Side effects

Consultant haematologist Dr Peter Hillmen, of Pinderfields General Hospital, West Yorkshire, said the drug was a major step forward.

"In trials this drug has been shown to be effective in one third of heavily pre-treated patients," he said.

"It is the first drug to prove effective in advanced case patients who have failed first-line and the gold-standard second-line treatment for B-CLL."

B-CLL is a blood disorder in which abnormal B-lymphocytes (white blood cells) build up in the bone marrow, blood and organs of the body, causing infection, bone marrow dysfunction and enlargement of the lymph nodes, liver and spleen.

The most common side effects of the new treatment are fever and shivering while the drug is being administered and an increased risk of infection during the course of treatment and for about two months afterwards.

New 'weapon'

The Leukaemia Research Fund welcomed the development of "another weapon" in the fight against the disease.

Scientific director Dr David Grant said there was increasing evidence that there are two forms of this type of leukaemia, one being much more aggressive and life-threatening than the other.

"While many patients may require no treatment at all, especially in the first instances, we desperately need new ways to treat younger patients and those who are resistant to current therapies," he said.

"LRF researchers are devising ways to distinguish between indolent and more aggressive chronic leukaemias.

"If we can pick out patients with a poorer prognosis earlier they can be given more intensive therapy when they are fitter and better able to tolerate it."