Acute pancreatitis is highly inflammatory pancreatic disease with no currently available specific treatment. It becomes a life-threatening complication caused by the anti-leukemic drug Asparaginase that is widely used as an effective treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Once children develop acute pancreatitis they cannot receive any more Asparaginase. Without Asparaginase treatments, children with leukaemia have very poor prognosis.
Leukaemia is the most common cancer to affect children and teenagers, accounting for approximately 1 in 3 cancers. Despite much progress being made as to the treatment of these cancers, certain subsets of leukaemia maintain a poor survival outcome, resulting in the need to develop novel treatments.
Acute pancreatitis is highly inflammatory pancreatic disease. It becomes a life threatening complication of childhood leukaemia treatment caused by the anti-leukemic drug Asparaginase. Once children develop acute pancreatitis, they cannot receive any more Asparaginase, because most likely the pancreatitis will happen again. Without Asparaginase treatments, the options for management of children with leukaemia are limited. Previously, attempts have been made ...
Read moreModern medicine has made enormous advances in treating children suffering from leukaemia. Nevertheless, this disease still makes up a third of all children who do not survive cancer. Research in the team’s laboratories is based upon finding new treatments for subtypes of leukaemia that are difficult to treat, through understanding the disease at the molecular level.
Current treatments for childhood leukaemia achieve outstanding cure rates, but employ genotoxic compounds that can damage the genome of normal tissues. These treatments cause severe side effects during treatment and can also have substantial late effects such as reduced bone density, heart damage, fertility loss or development of new cancer. Novel, less genotoxic medicines are currently being explored but, when ...
Read moreAdvances in modern intensive chemotherapy have revolutionised childhood leukaemia treatment. Unfortunately, patients who have relapsed disease have a poor response to chemotherapy and in the UK leukaemia still accounts for 30% of cancer deaths in children (Data from Cancer Research UK). Those with ‘high risk’ disease are treated with more intensive chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. This treatment is prolonged, ...
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