After a patient receives a bone marrow transplant they are watched very closely for signs of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).

When a patient receives a transplant of say a heart or liver, that patient is given drugs so that the body will not reject the organs. Your body does not recognize the organs as a part of you and the immune system will attack.

With GVHD it is the same concept but with a bone marrow transplant you are getting someone else’s immune system. This foreign immune system does not recognize your organs and can then attack them. GVHD can affect different parts of the body such as the skin, eyes, stomach and intestines. GVHD can sometimes be easily treated and controlled or other times can be deadly.

GVHD can be acute or chronic. It is considered acute if it occurs within the first 100 days after the transplant and chronic if it persists or develops after day 100.

This study focuses on chronic GVHD and looks to determine the natural history of the disease and assess biological factors that may predict outcomes.

Gleevec is proving over time to be such a promising breakthrough in successfully treating leukemia patients that even with the discovery that it can cause congestive heart failure researchers are still telling cancer patients not to stop taking the drug.

Dr. Thomas Force, of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, the study’s author, said that this is not a case of Vioxx and while ten patients taking Gleevec for chronic myelogenous leukemia developed severe congestive heart failure, the take away message of the study is that doctors need to be aware that cancer drugs like Gleevec can have severe effects on the heart and the heart health of patients taking Gleevec needs to be closely monitored.

Novartis, the drug maker for Gleevec states drug information is provided that indicates the potential for heart damage, but clinical trials and safety data indicate the incidence of heart failure for people taking the drug is extremely rare.

I can remember reading the warnings regarding chemotherapy drugs and chemoprevention drugs before they were administered and prescribed, and while it might seem a bit unnerving to agree to treatment or daily drug use that might lead to serious health problems unrelated to cancer, it is a calculated risk most accept in an effort to stop cancer now.

Hopefully, the heart damage associated with Gleevec is as extremely rare as the drug maker suggests, and with awareness doctors can spot heart damage in time to treat it, because all other indications point to Gleevec making a significant difference in leukemia patients surviving cancer longer.

For a young adult of 18, Chad Juros list of accomplishments is impressive. Magic, even.

An episode of Criss Angel’s MindFreak featured Chad. He is an official magician for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Philadelphia Eagles Fly organization. He performs at Richard Petty’s and Paul Newman’s camps for sick kids. He is the youngest magician ever to perform at the White House. He is a finalist in the World Magic Seminar Stage Competition. He was the finalist in the Volvo for Life Award and was awarded the Volunteer of the Year Award for the Leukemia Society.

Chad Juros is also the founder of Spread the Magic Foundation, an organization that uses magic to help kids with cancer find laughter, joy and hope. He knows about childhood cancer and the struggles faced when fighting cancer. At the age of three, he was diagnosed with leukemia. At the age of seven, his cancer came back. He needed a transplant, no match could be found. They put Chad on an experimental protocol where he spent 17 months as a hospital inpatient. He suffered cardiac arrest, and for a while, went into a coma. Chad’s father taught him magic tricks to distract him from the fear and pain of the grueling ordeal he faced as a child in cancer treatments.

Chad Juros has continued to perfect his magic. He is a remarkable young adult. Inspiring as a cancer survivor, skilled as a magician. You can visit Chad Juros at his website, and learn more about Magic Chad and the Spread the Magic Foundation.

Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute researchers have developed a new method of identifying abnormalities that cause cells to develop into cancerous ones that is much quicker and far less expensive than the traditional method of identification.

According to the researchers, DNA sequencing to find cancer-causing mutations in genes is time consuming and expensive, and the vast majority of mutations it identifies don’t cause cancer. With the new method, in less than two months they were able to find three activating mutations of the tyrosine kinase JAK3 in acute myeloid leukemia cells.

“It may have taken years to find these mutations with DNA sequencing alone,” said Jeffrey Tyner, Ph.D, a senior author of the study. “As we streamline our process, we will be able to analyze cancer cells for mutations in a matter of just weeks.”

“It moves forward the personalized medicine model where cancer treatment is tailored for each patient based on the molecular mutations at the heart of his or her cancer,” states Dr. Brian Druker, JELD-WEN chair of leukemia research in the OHSU Cancer Institute and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

One day Dr. Druker believes this new method of identifying abnormalities that cause cells to turn into cancerous ones can be applied to many cancers and that there will be a targeted drug developed for each cancer. For more information, visit OHSU Cancer Institute news.

Pat Bohman is a grateful mother. Her daughter Kelsey, who was treated at Children’s Hospital in Denver for leukemia, has made it through the battle. During the Christmas season of 2002, Pat thought about the children still in the hospital fighting cancer and she wanted to make them gifts. She came up with idea for the Marshmallow Launcher — a kind of blow gun that shoots marshmallows. The children make a poster target by drawing pictures of cancer cells, the poster gets put on the wall and then the kids shoot marshmallows through a pipe-like device at the target. Marshmallow Launchers are a big hit with the kids at the hospital.

According to Bohman, the marshmallow launchers were created for the kids in isolation on the oncology unit at The Children’s Hospital as a means to relieve tension, while away the long hours in isolation, and have some fun in the midst of very difficult circumstances.

But it turned out that the Marshmallow Launcher serves a medical purpose. As a respiratory device, it helps a child strengthen lung capacity. Much more fun than pinwheels and bubbles. Bohman is even thinking about adding a flow meter to the launcher as a way to measure lung capacity progress. But for the kids, it’s just pure fun.

In addition, when Bohman finds out another family in her area has a child who has been diagnosed with cancer, she sets up a booth to sell the launchers. The young and young-at-heart are drawn to the fun of the Marshmallow Launcher. It has been suggested that some adults use them for interoffice communications. If you would like a Marshmallow Launcher of your own, you can visit Kelsey’s Kids website where you can purchase one. Bohman makes them in the basement of her home. The profits are donated to the hospital that helped her daughter fight against cancer and win.

TORONTO – About 1,400 Ontario cancer patients are getting easier access to four new drugs. Health Minister George Smitherman announced today that the government will fund the cancer-fighting drugs. The government will spend $8.2 million this year and $15 million next year for coverage. It also estimates that the number of people who will eventually benefit from the new funding will rise to about 2,600.The treatments that will be covered are for lung cancer, breast cancer and blood cancer. The drugs that will be covered are: Velcade, Taxotere, Tomudex and Tarceva. Cancer Care Ontario chief executive officer Terry Sullivan says the announcement is good news for cancer patients.

HONGKONG: Scientists here believe they have uncovered the trigger for leukaemia, a cancer of the blood that afflicts millions worldwide.

The findings could pave the way for the design of new drugs to combat the abnormal proliferation of white blood cells and might also lead to new treatments for other types of cancers.

Leukaemia has been linked to infection by the Human T-cell leukaemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1), which is contracted through sex, blood transfusions and breastfeeding.

More than 20 million people suffer from leukaemia globally and it is especially prevalent in Japan.

In a study that began in 2000, researchers at the University of Hongkong found that abnormal division of white blood cells took place when a foreign protein called TAX in the leukaemia virus bound itself to a human protein which the same group of scientists identified for the first time in human cells.

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Q. What is Leukaemia?

A. Leukaemia is a cancer of the white blood cells.  Just as there are many different types of white blood cell, so there are many different types of leukaemia.   There are two main types: lymphocytic leukaemia (arising from a type of white blood cell called a lymphocyte) and myeloid leukaemia (arising from an immature type of white blood cell called a myeloid stem cell).

Q. What do chronic and acute mean?

A. Leukaemias are also divided into the slower (called chronic) and faster growing (called acute).  There are chronic and acute forms of both the lymphocytic and myeloid leukaemias.  Chronic leukaemia cells tend to accumulate in the blood whereas acute leukaemia cells tend to accumulate in both the blood and bone marrow.  All blood cells start their life in the bone marrow.

Q. How common is leukaemia?

A. There were 6,755 cases of leukaemia diagnosed in the UK in 2001, the most recent year for which we have records.  One third of these were acute myeloid leukaemia and another third were chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.  One tenth were acute lymphocytic leukaemia and another tenth were chronic myeloid leukaemia.  The rest were other, rarer types of leukaemia.

Q. Isn’t leukaemia a children’s cancer?

A. About half of all cases of acute lymphocytic leukaemia are in children under 10 years old, with another quarter of cases occurring in adolescents.  However, the other main types of leukaemia normally occurr in people over 50.  There are 500 cases of leukaemia in the UK each year amongst children, but 3,500 cases in people over 60.

Q. Who is at risk of leukaemia?

A. High levels of exposure to radiation are known to increase the risk of leukaemia, but the levels of exposure for the public, including people in the nuclear industry, radiologists, and people living near Sellafield, are so low that researchers cannot find any reliable evidence of increased risk for them.  Smoking increases the risk of myeloid leukaemia.  Exposure to benzene (an industrial chemical) has also been linked to a risk of these leukaemias.  The chemotherapy and radiotherapy used to treat some other cancers does cause a slight increase in the risk of getting acute myeloid leukaemia, although this is low enough to justify the use of these therapies.

Q. Doesn’t living under power lines increase the risk?

A. There is no reliable evidence that living near power lines or electricity generators is linked to an increased risk of leukaemia.  Some research has found a link between people working in power generating facilities and a higher risk of leukaemia, but other studies have not.

Q. Are there other diseases that lead on to leukaemia?

A. There are several blood diseases, such as myelodysplasia, which have a significant risk of developing into leukaemia.  In addition, children with Down’s Syndrome are 10 to 20 times more likely to get leukaemia.

Q. Does leukaemia run in families?

A. An increased risk of leukaemia can run in families.  If one person in the family has leukaemia, the other members have three times the normal risk of getting the same type of leukaemia.

Q. What are the symptoms of leukaemia?

A. The main symptoms of leukaemia are anaemia, frequent bruising, infections and abnormal bleeding.

Q. How is leukaemia diagnosed?

A. Chronic leukaemias are usually diagnosed by taking a blood sample and examining the cells under a microscope.  However, for lymphocytic leukaemias, it is necessary to take a bone marrow sample for an accurate diagnosis.

Q. How is leukaemia treated?

A. For all types of leukaemia, chemotherapy is the main type of treatment, usually combined with a bone marrow or stem cell transplant.   High doses of the drugs are used which kill not only the leukaemia cells but also the patients bone marrow cells.  This would normally prevent the patient from making new blood cells and soon prove fatal, but the bone marrow or stem cell transplant restores the bone marrow.  Various treatments have been tried for chronic myeloid leukaemia, including the use of interferon.

Q. How effective are the treatments?

A. Improved treatments for children with leukaemia now mean that nearly nine out of ten of them can be cured.   However, the cure rates for adults with leukaemia are not as good.    For chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, about half of the patients die within five years of being diagnosed.  For chronic myeloid leukaemia, about one third survive for five years.  For acute myeloid leukaemia, only one in ten patients survives for five years.  Amongst the few adults diagnosed with acute lumphocytic leukaemia, the outcome depends on their age.  About one third of the patients aged under 40 will survive for five years, but this goes down to about one patient in twenty for those aged over 70.