Posted on 08/11/2022 8:04:46 AM PDT by ConservativeMind
Researchers have studied the benefit of adding an established drug as a novel targeted therapy in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The results suggest that the drug hydroxyurea can increase treatment efficacy at a relatively low cost. The research could have significant implications for cancer treatment.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is an aggressive blood cancer with high mortality. The 5-year relative survival rate after a myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosis is 30 percent. One reason is that responses to chemotherapy are often insufficient, and a large proportion of patients relapse.
SAMHD1, the protein in the leukemia cell, has been shown to act as a resistance factor to the drug cytarabine, which is used to treat AML and other blood cancers. A research project showed that the drug hydroxyurea, which inhibits the growth of cancer cells, also inhibits SAMHD1 and thus makes chemotherapy with cytarabine more effective.
The results are based on patients with AML, supplemented with hydroxyurea in order to enhance the effect of cytarabine.
"The results from our study are very promising. All patients have responded remarkably well to the treatment and the addition of hydroxyurea has been well tolerated. We have in parallel also validated in the lab that the combination produced a higher concentration of the active cytotoxic agent inside the leukemia cells, and that it was more efficient in inducing leukemia cell death," says first author Martin Jädersten.
"Hydroxyurea has previously been used in leukemia as a mitigating therapy, but we are using it now for a new purpose—as a modern precision medicine. Since we are able to repurpose an already existing and approved drug, the additional cost per patient will be a couple of hundred kroner, i.e. about the same as a pack of pain relievers," says last author, Nikolas Herold,
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
It’s cheap and seems to have reasonable side effects.
I received a bone marrow transplant for CML in 1991 at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
At the time, I was given multiple options for how I was treated, on a daily basis.
It was something like- “you have 3 options. Option 1 has these side effects and a 97% success rate so far”. Did this for weeks prior to my transplant.
Now, decades later, I am seeing stories like this to remind me of those choices.
I must have chosen wisely. Im cancer free for over 30 years.
Congratulations! That’s a wonderful experience I would like many others to have.
You chose well.
I had AML. The standard treatment is 24/7 of cytarabine and the first 3 days a ‘push’ of Idarubacin (red devil). That’s the first round. It’s called 7+3
If there are aggressive mutations involved such as flt3 like I had, a stem cell transplant is needed to ensure remission is maintained.
Did you have an allo or auto?
I had an allo in 2015 for AML.
Not sure. It was Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. Didnt realize I had it until I went to the VA with a lump in my lower left abdomen. Turned out that my sleen was full of white cells.
I’m so pleased to know you did well! My dad died of AML in 2009. He was sick for almost a year and when he was finally properly diagnosed he died just six weeks later.
An allo is using donor cells. An Auto is using your own cells.
It was an anonymous donor.
From the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry.
That’s incredible. You had an allo sct 30 years ago! Impressive. I hope you’ve done well without any gvhd. .
Unfortunately, chemo left me with some problems. But, I had to have daily chemo for 3 years after the sct as a precaution against the mutation.
I’m so sorry about your father. Most people have never heard of AML and just how aggressive it is. It’s a shocking diagnosis.
It was around November when I didn’t feel well. But blood tests were normal. When my blood tests were taken again in February - I had about 1 week left had I not been treated. Treatment began in the hospital that very day.
This is Probably the same thing that happened with your father. The cancerous immature wbc’s /blasts were brewing in the bone marrow and had not hit the peripheral blood stream yet. (For the blood test)
Did they say why he wasn’t properly treated at first? Did they misdiagnose him?
I have not had any graft vs host issues.
God has blessed me more times than you can imagine.
Unfortunately I don’t really know the answer to your question. Although we spoke to each other every week, he (and Mom) lived in Minnesota and we are in Florida, and he never actually complained about feeling unwell until the diagnosis. His family doc apparently referred him to a local cancer specialist that immediately sent him to the Mayo for diagnosis. He and Mom called me from his bedside there on the April Fools Day... no kidding, and he passed away on May 9th.
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