Enzyme hope for young leukaemia sufferers
New enzyme research may solve why one in five children being treated for leukaemia do not respond to therapy
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Tuesday, 09, Jun 2009 09:18
Children being unsuccessfully treated for leukaemia could possess an enzyme that prevents therapy from working, new research has suggested.
Scientists from Cancer Research UK and Leukaemia Research claim to have identified an enzyme responsible for breaking down and inactivating a key childhood leukaemia drug.
The enzyme AEP, which is not found in healthy white blood cells, breaks down Asnase, a form of a drug called Asparaginase used to treat all children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) in the UK.
Researchers believe that the production of AEP and the resistance to the drug is the result of a genetic fault in some leukaemia cells.
Over 80 per cent of children with (ALL) are successfully treated, but for some patients the treatment does not work. Cancer Research says it is crucial that new treatments are found to help ensure all children with this type of cancer are cured.
Their scientists think that the presence of AEP could determine whether patients respond to Asnase treatment, and whether they have an allergic reaction to it.
If these results are confirmed in patients, a test could one day be developed to help doctors predict whether children with ALL will benefit from Asnase before treatment starts and hopefully prevent some patients undergoing unnecessary chemotherapy.
Professor Vaskar Saha, Cancer Research UK's paediatric oncologist, based at the Paterson Institute in Manchester, commented: "Although our results are at an early stage, our study is an important development in understanding the science behind why some patients don't respond to leukaemia drugs.
"If our findings in leukaemia cells are confirmed in patients, we could be able to test if this drug is the best option before treatment starts – we're currently recruiting patients from 18 childhood cancer centres in the UK to help us discover if this is the case."
ALL is the most common type of childhood cancer, and accounts for one in four of all cancers in children in the UK – around 450 cases are diagnosed each year.
Around 20 per cent of ALL patients are thought to have cancer cells that produce AEP, and so will not respond to Asnase.
Professor Sir David Lane, chief scientist at Cancer Research UK, added: "These encouraging results are a significant step forward in developing 'personalised treatment' – where therapy is tailored to the requirements of an individual patient.
"This concept is now becoming a reality and we look forward to seeing if this discovery can be translated to benefit children with cancer. Our goal is to control or cure cancer in all children."