British doctors make breakthrough in fighting leukaemia in juveniles

London: British doctors made a breakthrough in treating leukaemia in children after finding a new therapy. They applied it on a teenager, a girl only identified as Alyssa; she had gone into remission, Agence France-Presse reported.

Thirteen-year-old Alyssa was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and it did not respond to conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.

Doctors observed that the girl went into remission in 28 days. This will allow her second marrow transplantation for immune system restoration. Also, six months into the therapy, she is performing well at her home, under follow-up care.

Gosh said on Sunday that without the experimental treatment, Alyssa had the only option of palliative care. However, though her disease showed better responses to the treatment, her results need more monitoring and confirmation in the coming months.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is the most common cancer diagnosed in children. It affects the cells in the immune system, constituted by B cells and T cells, which fight viruses.

Alyssa was given base-edited T cells. Single nucleotide bases, the letters of the DNA code which carry instructions for specific proteins, were chemically converted in the new therapy. In 2015, researchers of GOSH and University College London developed genome-edited T cells to treat B-cell leukaemia.

But to treat certain other kinds of leukaemia, there was a challenge that T cells designed to attack cancerous cells fought each other and were killed while they were being manufactured. So more changes were needed for the base edited cells to keep them on the right course without damaging each other.

Experts say that the new breakthrough will pave the way for other new treatments, offering a better future for sick children.

The researchers will present their findings before the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology coming weekend.