ATLANTA, Dec. 10 The drug Gleevec has been shown to improve outcomes for children with Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Dr. Brian Druker, director of the Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute, said Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia has been the childhood leukemia with the worst prognosis. However, he said, the study shows adding Gleevec to the treatment almost completely reverses this poor prognosis.
Druker served as principal investigator of a six-year trial that found continuous treatment with Gleevec produced a declining rate of relapse over time -- between the fifth and sixth years, no patients progressed to an advanced phase of the disease.
"The news about Gleevec and the childhood leukemia study, as well as the six-year International Randomized Interferon versus STI571 study that shows there is no progression to advanced phase in chronic myeloid leukemia, means that more and more patients are surviving, despite being diagnosed with these cancers," Druker said in a statement.
Gleevec is approved for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumors, pediatric chronic myeloid leukemia, as well as five additional rare cancers.
The findings are being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in Atlanta.
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