Have a look at this! In news Bulletin there is an article about this simple cure! Prof Francoise-Xavier Mahon from France. this type of reporting certainly is very misleading. Such a small study cannot possibly come up with such sweeping statements. The last paragraph makes me very worried.
How pleased i am that I live in the UK.
The abstract of this study can be found here:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(10)70233-3/abstract
Yes I saw the article in the Telegraph and there was also a similar one in the Independent. I agree that all these are misleading - especially the headline below which intimates that CML is no longer deadly!!!!
The researchers behind French study - and those studies here in the UK and in Australia that are related to it- would certainly be worried by such misleading headlines. I am sure not one of them would recommend that anyone can stop treatment- nor that imatinib is a 'cure'. It is far more complex.
Tim Hughes/Junia Melo and fellow research clinicians in Australia have a similar study to the French STIM trial and they have found that a minority of those who stop treatment with IM do hold remissions- however our of 8 patients in their study-every patient bar one still has evidence of bcr/abl- detectable by a very sensitive PCR/DNA test. They conclude that these remissions might eventually relapse, maybe some years later but - the interesting question is how the disease is being controled without therapy- they conclude that it might be some form of 'immunotherapy' effect (natural inhibition of the onco-gene by the immune system) and that this will need further study. see the link to this article below which was first posted by Ian further down this page.
http://www.nature.com/leu/journal/v24/n10/abs/leu2010185a.html
This would tie in to the fact that it is well know that a % of the non-CML population have evidence of bcr/abl oncogene but in in this populations it never develops into CML- so their immune system inhibits the damaged stem cell in some way.
Research like this is important as it will only lead to greater understanding of how CML (and other cancers) work- hence we get much closer to a 'cure'.... It would be far better if the articles had shown that this research asks these sorts of questions rather than proclaims a 'cure' is available for some.
Best wishes,
Sandy
Business Week: Some with Once-Deadly Leukemia Can Take a Break From Gleevec
A small group of people with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who decided to stop taking the cancer drug Gleevec (imatinib) have remained cancer-free two years later, French researchers report.
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/644666.html
20.10.10
Top News: Standard Leukemia Drug Could Actually Cure the Disease: Studies are showing that chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) may be curable through the use of imatinib.
http://topnews.co.uk/214904-standard-leukemia-drug-could-actually-cure-disease
