A “super drug” that helps slow down the progression of blood cancer in children could soon become a reality, say researchers.
Patients with leukemia have a very low percentage of red blood cells, making them anemic, and have approximately 80 times more white blood cells than people without cancer.
However, the survival rate is only 30 per cent for children diagnosed with MLL-translocation leukemia, a cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow.
In the study, detailed in the journal Genes and Development, the team demonstrated that when a key protein responsible for leukemia, MLL, is stabilised, it slows the progression of the leukemia.
This MLL stabilisation process could potentially work in cancers with solid tumours, such as breast or prostate cancer.
The next step will be to combine the treatments from the past two years of research into a pediatric leukemia “super drug” to test on humans in a clinical trial, the researchers said.
The team also identified compounds that could slow cancer growth by interrupting a gene transcription process known as “Super Elongation Complex” (SEC).
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