B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia - Research Directions

Research Directions

Considerable research activity, studying the many treatments individually or in combination, is ongoing. Current research is comparing different forms of bone marrow transplants to determine which patients are the best candidates and which approach is best in different situations.

Researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine reported preliminary success in the use of gene therapy, through genetically modified T cells, to treat CLL. The findings, which were published in August 2011, were based on data from three patients who had modified T cells injected into their blood. The T cells had been modified to express genes that would allow the cells to proliferate in the body and destroy B cells including those causing the leukemia. Two patients went into remission, while the presence of leukemia in the third patient reduced by 70 percent. One of the patients had been diagnosed with CLL for 13 years, and his treatment was failing before he participated in the clinical trial. One week after the T cells were injected, the leukemia cells in his blood had disappeared. The T cells were still found in the bloodstream of the patients six months after the procedure, meaning they would be able to fight the disease should leukemia cells return. This was the first time scientists "have used gene therapy to successfully destroy cancer tumors in patients with advanced disease". One editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine also urged caution because only more trials would indicate whether the findings are "an authentic advance toward a clinically applicable and effective therapy".