Updated on
What did the project achieve?
Excitingly, based on this research, and similar results from international research groups, a new drug combination has now been included in an innovative international clinical trial that is currently recruiting patients in Europe and imminently in the UK,” says Dr Frederik van Delft of Newcastle University.
“We hope this will ultimately lead to a new treatment option for T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL), providing hope to children and young adults affected by the disease.”
T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) is a fast-developing type of blood cancer that mainly affects children, teenagers and young adults. Thankfully, most are cured after treatment – but for those whose disease returns or who don’t respond to existing treatments, the outlook is not as positive and sadly, many will lose their lives.
Dr van Delft and his team developed a laboratory-based system to test how specific combinations of drugs may kill leukaemia cells.
“The advantage of such a system is that we can test multiple drug combinations on actual patient cells in a petri dish, and only select the most promising drug combinations for the next stage of drug development or clinical testing,” says Dr van Delft.
The researchers used this system to explore the potential of using a combination of two existing cancer drugs to overcome drug resistance in T-ALL.
“We tested this new drug combination in a laboratory model of T-ALL, with promising results,” says Dr van Delft. “Working together with doctors and researchers across Europe, we developed a new clinical trial that is now evaluating its safety and effectiveness in children and young people with drug-resistant T-ALL.”
The researchers anticipate that this research could influence patient care in the next two to three years. This could lead to improvements in the treatment of children with T-ALL that is difficult to treat.
This research was completed on
Leukaemia is the most common cancer in children with around 500 children each year diagnosed with a type of leukaemia called acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).1 Up to one in five of these children will have a fast-developing form of the disease called T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL).2 Thankfully, most are cured after treatment – but for those children where the disease returns or who don’t respond to existing treatments, the outlook is not as positive and many will lose their lives. Dr Frederik van Delft of Newcastle University is carrying out laboratory investigations to find out if combining two existing drugs could offer an effective new treatment option. His results could pave the way for a future clinical trial, providing hope for children and young adults if T-ALL comes back.
How are children’s lives affected now?
T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) is a form of blood cancer that mainly affects children, teenagers and young adults. The disease occurs when white blood cells called T-cells grow too fast, stopping the bone marrow from producing healthy blood cells.
Children with T-ALL will initially receive six months of intensive chemotherapy treatment, including steroid drugs – followed by lower-dose chemotherapy. Radiotherapy and/or a bone marrow transplantation is reserved for patients with drug-resistant disease.
“Thankfully, most children are cured – although they may be left with lifelong, sometimes serious, side-effects,” says Dr van Delft.
But sadly, the outlook is worse for children whose T-ALL doesn’t respond well to initial treatment, or if their cancer comes back and has become resistant to drugs.
“It is very difficult to successfully treat children with drug-resistant T-ALL,” says Dr van Delft. “We desperately need to find effective new treatments, so we can save more young lives from being cut tragically short.”
How could this research help?
“Our aim is to develop a new treatment approach that will improve survival for children and young people with T-ALL that has come back,” says Dr van Delft.
Dr van Delft is building on his previous laboratory work, which found that a combination of two existing drugs used to treat leukaemia – dasatinib (DAS) and dexamethasone (DEX) – could be an effective way to reverse drug resistance and kill T-ALL cells.
The team will now carry out more laboratory experiments to find out if and why these drugs might work better together for treating drug-resistant cancers. They will also search for specific characteristics of a child’s cancer cells that can help predict how well their disease will respond to this treatment.
“If our results look promising, we aim to test this drug combination in an international trial – selecting the children with relapsed T-ALL who are most likely to benefit,” says Dr van Delft.
References
1.Cancer Research UK Statistics: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/st... [website accessed 26 August 2018]
2.American Cancer Society: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/leukemia-in-children/detection-diagnosis-s... [website accessed 26 August 2018]
| Project Leader | Dr Frederik van Delft, MD PhD FRCPCH |
| Project Team | Professor Julie Irving, PhDDr Chris Halsey, BMBCh FRCPath PhD |
| Project Location | Northern Institute of Cancer Research, Wolfson Childhood Cancer Research Centre, Newcastle University |
| Project Location Other | Wolfson Wohl Cancer Research Centre, Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow |
| Project duration | 3 years |
| Date awarded | 30 July 2018 |
| Project start date | 1 November 2018 |
| Project end date | 31 July 2024 |
| Grant amount | £208,120 |
| Grant code | GN2709 |
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