Leukaemia drug boost for patients

Some leukaemia patients could be cured of their disease by a standard drug treatment, trial results suggest.

A proportion of patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) remained free of the disease two years after doctors stopped treating them, the findings showed.

The results raise the possibility that at least some patients with CML can be cured by the drug imatinib.

Previously, it was believed the disease would always return if treatment was halted, due to the presence of resistant stem cells...

The scientists, led by Professor Franois-Xavier Mahon, from Victor Segalen Bordeaux University in France, reported their findings in the Lancet Oncology.

They wrote: "Our results confirm that imatinib can safely be stopped, providing that stable CMR has been obtained. Discontinuation in this setting yields promising results for molecular relapse-free survival, raising the possibility that, at least in some patients, CML might be cured by tyrosine-kinase inhibitors."

However, the authors pointed out that sustained complete molecular remission - the pre-requisite for stopping treatment - did not often occur. Suitable candidates might represent only about 10 per cent of patients.