A Bright New Dawn For Leukemia Patients With Novel Treatment - 2025

The recent advancements in acute leukemia treatment has been unanimously certified by the US Food and Drug Advisory Panel as the probable first gene therapy in the world. This is a major technological achievement in the health sector where a leukemia patient’s cancer genes are enabled to fight cancer by genetically altering them. Leukemia or Blood Cancer is prevalent in India with nearly 30,000 new patients being diagnosed every year. The Doctors are hopeful that this treatment can benefit such patients once the clinical trials are cleared. Acute Leukemia is a type of cancer of blood cells which develops suddenly and in an absence of treatment progresses rapidly. This treatment for such a fatal disease has been developed with intense research over many decades.

“This is indeed a breakthrough in the treatment discovered after three to four years of extensive research. This process consists of removing the cancerous cells from the patient’s body altering them with technology and re injecting them in the patient’s body to enable the body to fight cancer.” Exclaimed Dr Vinod Raina, Executive Director, Medical Oncology and Hematology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute with a great sense of achievement.

As every coin has two sides, so are some challenges associated with this treatment. A major challenge is that this technique is to be customized every time it is used. This implies that the cells removed from the patient’s body at an approved medical center are to be frozen and transported to a pharmacy for defrosting and processing, frozen again and transferred again to the treatment center.

“This procedure is not as simple as it appears to be because this treatment has evolved from modified genes. It is certainly a turning point especially beneficial for those patients who do not respond to normal treatment.” Says Dr Ratna Puri who is a Senior Consultant at Department of Genetics Ganga Ram Hospital.

Even a single dose of the product has resulted in temporary relief of symptoms and possibly cured many patients who were non responsive to any other treatment for long. This treatment is recommended by the FDA panel for treating non responsive and relapsing B –cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia especially in young adults aged between 3 to 25 years.

Dr Puri cautions about the assessment of possible side effects of the treatment.

There is an intense cut throat competition continuing from decades between various researchers and drug companies for reaching the latest milestone of advancement. Novartis, a Swiss Drug maker is presently seeking approval to use this treatment for patients aged between 3 to 25 years and suffering from the blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia where the disease has spread considerably or has failed to respond to standard treatment.

As per the reports, the main evidence that Novartis used as a proof to show the FDA, were based on a study involving 63 patients. These patients received the above stated treatment from the period of April 2015 to August 2016. There was a temporary diminishing of symptoms found in 52 patients which establishes a success rate of 82.5%. The remaining 11 patients died.

“Long term major clinical trials are needed for determining the duration of sustainability of the benefits of this treatment.” Dr Raina said while sharing his views.

India is a developing country which witnesses nearly 10 lakh new cancer cases yearly. Around 30,000 of these are cases of acute leukemia. This condition is commonly found in children and young adults especially aged between 3 to 25 years. Drug based therapy and bone marrow transplants form the present line of treatment.