New leukaemia drug prolongs lives

A new drug designed to battle a leukaemia that affects 4500 Americans each year, kept 92 per cent of patients alive for two years, even after conventional treatment failed, a report in the New England Journal of Medicinesays.

The US Food and Drug Administration last year approved use of the drug imatinib mesylate, sold under the brand name Gleevec by Novartis AG, for people with chronic myelogenous leukaemia, in part because of the initial results of this study.

A team at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Centre said the estimated 24-month survival rate was 92 per cent, according to follow-up data available for 149 patients as of February 1.

"Our findings represent a dramatic improvement in the life expectancy in these patients, for whom standard therapy has failed," said team leader D. Hagop Kantarjian.

Typically, 15 to 20 per cent of patients with CML die each year after standard treatment with interferon has failed. If interferon fails, the best treatment is a bone marrow transplant.

CML can be potentially cured with a stem-cell transplant.

- REUTERS

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