blood cancer

Strategy will help to understand drug resistance in leukemia

harminka — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:16:30 -0500

UCSF researchers have developed a new approach to identify specific genes that influence how cancer cells respond to drugs and how they become resistant.

Gene shut-down warns chronic leukemia development

harminka — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:35:31 -0500

A new study shows that certain genes are turned off early, before clinical signs of the disease appear, in the development of chronic leukemia.

Silenced genes may warn blood cancer

harminka — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:40:11 -0500

In many types of cancer, parts of the genetic material of tumor cells are switched off by chemical labels called methyl groups. This kind of methyl labeling ranges among the epigenetic changes that do not change the sequence of DNA building blocks. Such labels are found particularly often in genes which act as important inhibitors of pathogenic cell growth.

Gene abnormality found to predict childhood leukemia relapse

harminka — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:25:50 -0600

Scientists have identified mutations in a gene that predict a high likelihood of relapse in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Second-generation CML drugs show promise as frontline therapy

harminka — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:22:30 -0600

Two drugs approved as fallback therapy for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) appear to outperform historical benchmarks of the frontline medication when used as a first treatment in separate clinical trials, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported at the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Hematological Society.

Early Treatment Delay Progression of Blood Cell Cancer

harminka — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:10:58 -0600

Mayo Clinic researchers say they have moved closer to their goal of providing personalized care for a common blood cell cancer. They have found that the use of predictive biomarkers along with two targeted treatments significantly delays the need for conventional chemotherapy in patients with early-stage, but high-risk, chronic lymphoid leukemia (CLL).

Silencing a protein could kill T-Cells, reverse leukemia

harminka — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:12:56 -0500

Blocking the signals from a protein that activates cells in the immune system could help kill cells that cause a rare form of blood cancer, according to physicists and oncologists who combined computer modeling and molecular biology in their discovery.

Methadone breaks resistance in untreatable forms of leukemia

harminka — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:04:45 -0500

Researchers in Germany have discovered that methadone, an agent used to break addiction to opioid drugs, has surprising killing power against leukemia cells, including treatment resistant forms of the cancer.

Sparing leukemia Patients from unnecessary treatment

harminka — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:26:22 -0500

Nearly a third of leukemia patients do not respond to chemotherapy, but this is not usually discovered until they have already endured a week-long chemotherapy treatment and waited a month to see whether it has worked. A new study shows that PET scans could tell how well a patient is responding after just one day of chemotherapy.

Gene mutation improves leukemia drug's effect

harminka — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:40:25 -0500

Gene mutations that make cells cancerous can sometimes also make them more sensitive to chemotherapy. A new study led by cancer researchers at Ohio State University shows that a mutation present in some cases of acute leukemia makes the disease more susceptible to high doses of a particular anticancer drug.

Microenvironment main driver of aggressive multi-lineage leukemia disease type

harminka — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:18:34 -0500

Research led by scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center has revealed new clues into what causes different types of a particularly aggressive group of blood cancers known as mixed lineage leukemias (MLL) and how the disease might be treated, according to a study in the June 9 issue of Cancer Cell.

Biological and clinical activity in relapsed leukemia patients

harminka — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:50:38 -0500

Finbarr Cotter, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of the Institute of Cell and Molecular Science at Barts and The London School of Medicine, today presented in an oral session "Clinical Caspase Activation in CLL by GCS-100: a Phase 2 Study" at the 10th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (10-ICML).