The presence of mutations in a particular gene may forecast the quick return of acute leukemiaterm in some people with the disease, a new study shows.

            Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center examined the prognostic importance of mutations in a gene called Wilms tumor 1 (WT1). The study involved 196 patients under age 60 with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) whose leukemic cells had normal-looking chromosomes, a characteristic present in nearly half of adult AML cases.

Australian scientists have identified a way to 'switch off' a molecule, a key player in the molecular processes that trigger breast cancer and certain forms of leukaemiaterm.

The molecule, known as Gab2, operates downstream of a major breast cancer oncogene, HER2, the target of the drug Herceptin.

A research team from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, led by Professor Roger Daly, has found a novel way of blocking signals to and from Gab2, preventing it from fulfilling its role in cell proliferation. The finding is published online today in the EMBO Journal.

In 2002, Professor Daly identified the important role of Gab2 in breast cancer. His task since then has been to work out exactly how Gab2 functions, and how to stop it.

When kids complain that math homework won't help them in real life, a new answer might be that math could help cure cancer.

In a recent study that combined math and medicine, researchers have shown that patients with chronic myelogenous leukemiaterm (CML) may be cured of the disease with an optimally timed cancer vaccine, where the timing is determined based on their own immune response.

In the June 20 edition of the journal PLoS Computational Biology, University of Maryland associate professor of mathematics Doron Levy, Stanford Medical School physician and associate professor of medicine (hematology) Peter P. Lee, and Dr. Peter S. Kim, École Supérieure d'Électricité (Gif-sur-Yvette, France) describe their success in creating a mathematical model which predicts that anti-leukemia immune response in CML patients using the drug imatinib can be stimulated in a way that might provide a cure for the disease.

BOSTON -- In both leukemiaterm and solid tumors, there exists among the multitude of warrior cancer cells a small subgroup that work undercover, patiently lying in wait to launch their attacks. Known as either cancer initiating cells (CICs) or leukemia initiating cells (LICs), these stealth populations are impervious to conventional chemotherapyterm and undaunted by targeted cancer therapies. When a leukemia patient relapses following a period of remission, it is the LICs that bear responsibility for the disease’s reemergence.

The secret to the survival abilities of these cells has been unclear. But in a paradoxical discovery, a research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that a tumor suppressor protein known as PML appears to be the factor that enables LICs to maintain their quiescence – the inert state that protects them from being destroyed by cancer therapies – and suggests that inhibition of PML is a promising target for new therapeutics.

LONDON: Children who attend day care or play groups have about a 30% lower risk of developing the most common type of childhood leukaemiaterm than those who do not, according to a new analysis of studies investigating the link.

The new research, to be presented Tuesday at the 2nd CHILDREN with LEUKAEMIA Causes and Prevention of Childhood Leukaemia Conference in London, is the first comprehensive analysis of studies investigating the association between social contact and childhood leukaemia.

“Combining the results from these studies together provided us with more confidence that the protective effect is real. Analysing the evidence in this way gives a more reliable answer to the question and a more precise estimate of the magnitude of the effect,” said the study’s leader, Dr. Patricia Buffler, professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health of the University of California, Berkeley.

Just three years after discovering a genetic mutation that causes a trio of leukemias, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have helped move a new leukemiaterm drug into clinical trials.

The Food and Drug Administration approved human clinical trials of the drug based on strong preclinical data and additional studies in mice showing that the drug eliminates clinical manifestation of the leukemias without any significant toxicity. Some of the data that laid the foundation for the clinical trials are now being reported in the April 7, 2008, issue of the journal Cancer Cell by D. Gary Gilliland and colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Scientists at TargeGen Inc., in San Diego., and the Mayo Clinic are also coauthors of the article.

The dramatic increase that has occurred in the cure rate for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemiaterm (ALL) will be difficult to replicate in older patients without considerable additional research, according to an article by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital authors that appears in the March 22 issue of the Lancet.

In order to raise the survival rate of adolescents and adults with ALL, researchers will need a more thorough understanding of the biology of this form of leukemia, including the role that genes play in therapies, according to Ching-Hon Pui, M.D., chair of the St. Jude Department of Oncology and a leading ALL researcher. Currently, adolescents treated for ALL do not fare as well as children; and among adults with ALL, only 30 to 40 percent are cured.

A new study suggests that a type of acute leukemiaterm may occur in part because abnormally low levels of one small molecule result in the over-activity of genes important to the disease.

            The research involved patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and a gene mutation called NPM1, an alteration seen in about one-third of adult AML cases.

The findings suggest new therapeutic targets for treating the disease and should improve the understanding of AML, researchers say.

While doctors already face many challenges in treating patients with cancer, treating pregnant women with the disease, in particular, can be quite difficult as studies suggest that certain therapies can harm developing fetuses. According to the results of a study prepublished today online in Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology, expectant women treated with imatinib, a commonly used therapy for chronic myeloid leukemiaterm (CML), may be at moderate risk of developing fetal abnormalities.

Imatinib was introduced for the treatment of CML in 1998 and has become a primary therapy for most patients, turning the previously fatal disease into a mostly chronic condition in the last decade. The drug's label warns that women of child-bearing age should avoid pregnancy while taking the drug based on earlier studies that suggested it may penetrate the placenta and cause damage to developing cells.

A research team at the Moores Cancer Center at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) reports that patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemiaterm (CLL) who were treated with a gene therapy protocol began making antibodies that reacted against their own leukemia cells. The study will be published on line the week of February 11-15 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Researchers led by Thomas J. Kipps, M.D., Ph.D., inserted a gene with the potential to activate an immune response – a gene therapy protocol developed at UCSD – into six patients with CLL, the most common form of adult leukemia. Several of the patients started making antibodies that reacted against their own leukemia cells. When tested in the lab, the antibodies also reacted with the leukemia cells of other patients with the disease.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that certain small molecules used by cells to control the proteins they make might also help doctors identify adult acute-leukemiaterm patients who are likely to respond poorly to therapy.

Researchers say the findings should improve the understanding of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and could lead to new therapies for patients with few treatment options.

The study examined the levels of molecules called microRNAs in leukemia cells from 122 patients with high- and intermediate-risk AML and in normal blood stem cells from 10 healthy donors.

The findings showed that both the leukemia cells and their normal counterparts had similar kinds of microRNA, but that the two groups differed in the levels of miRNAs present.

Pulmonary function tests are often performed before hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to screen for underlying respiratory problems. Recent research has suggested that pretransplant pulmonary function tests—particularly a measurement combining FEV₁ and the diffusing capacity of carbon dioxide (DLCO)—can predict posttransplant respiratory failure and mortality.¹

Jason Chien, MD, and colleagues retrospectively studied the pretransplant pulmonary function and arterial blood gasses of 2,852 cancer patients who received allogeneic stem cell transplants during a 12-year period. FEV₁, FVC, total lung capacity, DLCO, and alveolar-arterial oxygen tension difference (PaO₂) were measured. Patients in the nonmyeloablative group received 2Gy total body irradiation. Those in the myeloablative group received either total-body-irradiation-based or non-total-body-irradiation-based regimens. According to Dr. Chien, an Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, “Assessment of pretransplant pulmonary function tests is very important, given their relationship with mortality risk. We would like to see every transplant center in the world screen their patients with pretransplant pulmonary function tests.”

New Rochelle, NY, December 19, 2007—In a groundbreaking experiment published in Cloning & Stem Cells, scientists from International Stem Cell (ISC) Corp. derived four unique embryonic stem cell lines that open the door for the creation of therapeutic cells that will not provoke an immune reaction in large segments of the population. The stem cell lines are “HLA-homozygous,” meaning that they have only the genetic profile of the mother, but duplicated. Every egg from a woman has one copy of the information needed to raise a woman. Humans need two copies, and the second is usually provided by the father, including either an X or a Y. A group of researchers has simply copied the half that already existed in the egg, and created a new cell with the potential to grow into bllod cells, nerve, or any other needed cell type. This is different to cloning, which would be an exact replica of the mother. The lines could serve to create a stem cell bank as a renewable source of transplantable cells for use in cell therapy to replace damaged tissues or to treat genetic and degenerative diseases. 

HOUSTON - A new scoring system for a form of leukemiaterm known as myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) identifies patients who appear to have low-risk disease but actually have poor prospects of survival, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report online at the journal Leukemia.

"We know an undefined group of MDS patients who are classified as low-risk by our present prognostic models will at some point have a sudden worsening of their disease. Right now, we don't know who these people are, but if we can identify them, we can start those with a poor prognosis on early treatment," says lead author Guillermo Garcia-Manero, M.D., associate professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Leukemia.