Researchers in Ireland and Italy claim in a new study to have developed a drug called PBOX-15 which is capable of killing leukaemia cells where other medications have proved unsuccessful. Use of this drug to treat leukaemia patients with the disease in its most common form could start to occur between around 2012 and 2014, according to Trinity College Dublin (TCD)-based Professor Mark Lawler.

In comments made to the media, the professor emphasised that tests on the drug remained ongoing, but delivered a positive message. "We are still at an early stage - now we have to move it on to see if there are any side effects", he said, adding, however: "...it's very exciting - we want to give hope to cancer patients."

New Leukaemia Drug

Trinity College is one of four sites involves in the development of the new leukaemia drug: the others are nearby St. James Hospital, Belfast City Hospital and Italy's University of Sienna.

According to Professor Lawler, leukaemia cell samples provided by patients involved in trialling the drug highlighted how it had fought the disease - fragmenting the framework of the cells.

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia

The majority of people with leukaemia have a specific type of it - CCL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia) - the development of which in the human body is not as fast-paced as some leukaemia forms.

The new leukaemia drug, said Lawler, "activates key targets in leukaemia cells that trigger the cells to die". He continued: "Cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy by evading or avoiding cell death. The TCD researchers demonstrated that PBOX-15 can overcome this resistance and kill these cancer cells."

55 patients with CCL participated in the PBOX-15 trials, and these highlighted how the drug was more effective than a key chemotherapy drug known as fludarabine when it came to destroying the cancerous cells.

PBOX-15

"The most exciting result was that PBOX-15 also killed CLL cells that were resistant to the existing treatment", Lawler added. "The ability of PBOX-15 to kill leukaemia cells while sparing normal blood cells suggests that the PBOX drug may pave the way for new approaches for the treatment of this incurable cancer."

The study appears in the current edition of the Cancer Research publication.

"The findings that are being published today emphasise the potential for basic science discoveries to translate to clinical benefit", Irish Cancer Society representative John McCormack commented. "These now need to be brought from the laboratory to the bedside so that they will ultimately benefit patients with this common form of leukaemia."