Researchers from Trinity College Dublin in partnership with the University of Sienna, Italy, have found a drug that can kill leukemia cells. Tests show the drug, called PBOX-15, can destroy cancerous cells even from adults who have a poor prognosis because their leukemia has been resistant to existing treatments.
PBOX-15 can destroy cancerous cells of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) while sparing healthy cells. It works by activating a procedure that causes cells to die. The new medicine worked better than fludarabine, the current drug used to treat CLL, in the cancerous cells given by 55 patients. It also killed cells that had become resistant to chemotherapy.
CLL is a form of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many white blood cells, and is the second most common type of leukemia in adults. Around 10,000 people, usually over the age of 55, are diagnosed in the United States each year.
“We are still at an early stage,” said Professor Mark Lawler of Trinity College’s School of Medicine. “We have to move it on to see if there are any side effects and bring it forward as a potential therapy for patients.”
Lawler believes it will take three to five years before the new drug will be available. “But it’s very exciting,” he said. “We want to give hope to cancer patients.”
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