Kansas University Cancer Center Joins Clinical Trial Involving Acute Myeloid Leukemia For Older Patients

The center has already begun participating in the trial. "KU Cancer Center contributed cancer cell samples in the first phase of the Beat AML initiative, and we are excited to continue playing a part in this revolutionary research effort," said Dr. Tara Lin, director of KU Cancer Center's Acute Leukemia Program and medical director of the Clinical Trials Office. "As one of only a few centers across the country selected to participate, and the only center in the region, we are able to provide AML patients access to this groundbreaking trial."

“To understand acute myeloid leukemia we have to understand how the bone marrow works,” says Dr. Mikkael Sekeres, Director of the Leukemia Program at Cleveland Clinic and Vice Chair for Clinical Research at the Cleveland Cancer Center. “The bone marrow is the factory that makes all of the cells that wind up in our bloodstream. It makes the red blood cells, those bring oxygen to our tissues, and when those are low or anemic, it makes the white blood cells … That’s our immune system that fights infections. And it makes platelets and platelets help stop bleeding. When a person has a cancer of the bone marrow, such as acute myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndromes that factory gets broken.”

As this particular type of cancer grows, the cells that are needed for the bone marrow to carry out its basic functions die off. “Cancers grow, and they grow in an uncontrolled way. Instead of being a cancer in the breast where somebody develops a lump, or cancer in the lungs where somebody might develop a mass, with these sort of liquid tumors, the cells grow within a very confined space of the bone marrow. As these cancers grow and grow and grow, those normal bone marrow cells that make the red blood cells, the white blood cells, and the platelets, start to die off. And the bone marrow gets filled with cancer cells.”

For young people, there is a good possibility that chemotherapy can cure the disease. “In a younger person with AML, our chance of curing that leukemia is about 30-40% walking through the door. It may be much higher than that in people who have the good risk genes. It may be much lower than that in people who have the poor risk genes.”

But while the chance of being cured for a young person getting chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia is 30% to 40%, for patients over 60 the treatment is much more difficult. “For someone who’s older, over the age of 60, the chance that that person will be cured, alive five years after diagnosis, is less than ten percent. The chance that that person will die from the chemotherapy itself given in the hospital is about the same percentage. Less than ten percent, maybe eight to ten percent. You can see why it’s such a difficult decision over the age of 60 with a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia whether or not to receive this aggressive chemotherapy.”

The trial hopes to create a treatment that is more individualized based on the patients’ disease. "For too long we've treated AML as a one-size-fits-all disease when it is really a much more complex grouping of multiple subtypes of blood cancer, and this trial sets out to change that paradigm," Louis J. DeGennaro, Ph.D, LLS's president and CEO told UK Cancer Center News. "Our goal with this innovative trial is to deliver the right drug to the right patient at the right time, and we're encouraged by the progress we've seen in the past year. The addition of a prestigious institution such as The University of Kansas Cancer Center will help us deliver critical help to patients who urgently need better options, now."

Using samples taken from the bone marrow, doctors in the clinical trail can identify specific gene mutations, and then target them using specific drugs. “The protocol uses sophisticated genomic technology to identify the genetic drivers of the patient's AML in order to match them with an appropriate targeted therapy,” says Kansas University Cancer Center’s information.

The trial has enrolled over 490 patients so far.

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