Investigators from Britain have come up with a cure that could be employed for halting the disease relapsing following chemotherapy or BMT (bone marrow transplant). In the long run, it is anticipated that the drug that could activate the body’s own immune system to combat leukemia, may well be utilized for treating other cancer forms. The entrants in the study had acute myeloid leukemia or AML, the widespread type found in adults. Despite undergoing belligerent treatment, nearly half of them would generally experience the disease to recur. The thought behind cancer vaccine is not essentially preventing the disease but rather programming the body’s immune system in hunting down cancerous cells and obliterating them. The vaccine then elicits the immune system in recognising leukemia cells  [...]

A novel leukemia research conducted in the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota reveals that those patients having acute leukemia when administered transplantation of 2 units of UCB or umbilical cord blood had extensive reduction in risk of the disease relapsing. This discovery shows promise in changing the present medical practice of employing a single UCB unit for treating patients having a high risk of relapse of leukemia and other kinds of cancers affecting the blood and bone marrow. Michael Verneris, M.D., and John Wagner, M.D., who have dedicated themselves to the research and treatment of infants having cancer, helmed the research team on this innovative study. The outcomes of this study are printed in the present edition of the medical journal ‘Blood’. This study was backed  [...]

Leukemia is a form of cancer affecting the tissues which are responsible for the body’s blood formation that includes the bone marrow and the lymph system. During this condition, there is huge production of the anomalous white blood cells by the bone marrow to such an extent that at times it lends the blood a white cast. The normally functioning white blood cells are powerful infection-combatants. However, among individuals affected with leukemia the irregular white blood cells have a tendency of accumulating, hindering normal white blood cell production and impeding the body’s capacity to combat infection. Leukemia treatment is a multifarious approach wherein majority of the patients undergo chemotherapy, while others get treated with radiation therapy, BMT or bone marrow implant or biological  [...]