Finnish study finds new therapy for childhood cancer

A new therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common cancer affecting children, has been developed by Finland's Tampere University in cooperation with Harvard Stem Cell Institute, reported Xinhua.

The prognosis for the T-ALL form of leukemia when relapsed is very poor, and new treatments are urgently required. The new therapy developed by the two institutions is a combination of drugs which was found to be effective in approximately one-third of patients.

In the treatment of leukemia, the efficacy of a single drug is usually lost quickly, so the new study searched for drug combinations.

"This is a promising new treatment option for T-acute leukemia. The next step is to take the discovery into clinical practice for patients with relapsed or refractory disease via early phase clinical trials," said Research Director Olli Lohi from Tampere University.

The study was published in Blood, a scientific journal in the field of hematology. Researchers from the Universities of North Carolina, Eastern Finland and Helsinki also participated in the study.