Experimental Treatment Sends Deadly Leukemia Into Remission

Video by Harry Moxley

Dr. Thomas P. Loughran Jr. MD., Director of the University of Virginia Cancer Center of discusses his work and research looking for a leukemia cure.

An experimental new treatment approach for a rare, deadly leukemia can send the disease into remission even in patients for whom the standard therapy has failed, buying them more time to have the stem cell transplant that could save their lives, a small pilot study has found.

Transcription:
All of us in cancer research as well as clinicians, our first goal in treating a patient is get them into remission, which means all evidence of cancer goes away. Second step is making sure that disease never comes back again. I'm Tom Loughran. I'm the director of the UVA Cancer Center.

My research is really based in the clinic. A current term that's popular is called translational research, which is commonly understood as science in the lab, getting it into the clinic as fast as you can. My own research is focused on a disease I discovered actually when I was working in Seattle at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. And we called it LGL leukemia.

I also work on acute myeloid leukemia. And then our recent work has been branching off into other types of leukemia, for example, a disease called T-cell PLL, which is T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia. T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia is a very acute leukemia characterized by a massive increase in number of blood cells that are leukemia cells.

What our study showed was really success in many ways of getting patients into remission and then having them live longer. What we found was when we added immunotherapy in the form of an antibody and then added epigenetic therapy in the form of a drug, we were able to show better success in getting patients back into remission. And secondly, the combination of the two actually provided us an opportunity to do other types of treatment.

So one of the benefits of the new therapy that we just published is that number one, we're able to get patients back into remission when their treatment have failed. And secondly, we're able to do that on a number of occasions. The benefit of that, it allows us more time to seek the definitive cure for this type of leukemia, which is a bone marrow transplant.

The major goal of all of us working at the Cancer Center is to provide hope for our patients. We do that through many missions. But the key message is, we're all working together as a team to advance care of our patients with cancer.

• Category

  Leukemia - Acute Myeloid - AML