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New drug could replace chemotherapy to treat leukaemia
Irish patients were among 391 people to trial the new drug
Jack Quann
Monday 16 June 2014
A new breakthrough cancer drug has been discovered to treat leukaemia as an alternative to chemotherapy.
Irish patients were among 391 people to trial the new drug which boosts survival to 90% - up from 81% for conventional treatment.
The research is published in the New England Journal of Medicine and has found the drug, called 'Ibrutinib', to have better rates of survival for patients with the commonest form of leukaemia than conventional therapy.
Dr. Patrick Thornton is senior lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and co-author of a New England Journal of Medicine report.
"Ireland was per capita the highest recruiter globally to this trial. During the trial the patients responded quicker to the new drug than to monoclonal antibody therapy and showed fewer side effects".
"The trial also found that patients, who had not responded to, or have resistance to chemotherapy, now have an alternative treatment option. This drug represents a complete paradigm shift in the treatment of leukaemia which could replace the need for chemotherapy at all and changes completely how leukaemia can be treated" he added.
The research found the drug is better tolerated than traditional forms of treatment, and is an alternative for patients whose cancer cells have built up a resistance to chemotherapy.
Results from the trial also showed that four out of every 10 patients entered remission within a year, compared to four in 100 on a traditional treatment.
Ibrutinib works by disabling the enzyme, Bruton's Kinase, crucial for Leukaemia's survival. Due to the success of the clinical trial, Dr. Thornton said "Ibrutinib is now available to patients with the aggressive and chemotherapy resistant forms of CLL in Ireland".
Although one of the rarest forms of cancer, CLL is the most common type of leukaemia and the older you are the higher the chance you have of developing it.
There are approximately 500 Leukaemia diagnoses each year in Ireland of which around 40% of these are CLL. More than 200 people in Ireland die every year of Leukaemia.