[ad_1]
Darrin Batchelor had never imagined that the painful knee of her four-year-old daughter would upset her family's world, but 14 hours after a visit to the doctor, she was in the hospital.
On Monday, after Isla practiced swimming, his wife Sarah and he decided to make an appointment with a doctor for the next morning.
"We were recalled in the afternoon with the results of the blood tests and we were told that Isla was suffering from leukemia and had to go immediately to the hospital," she said. Mr. Batchelor is recalled.
"Starting Tuesday morning, thinking that it was perhaps a growing pain, having him in the hospital that night with a child with cancer, was horrible."
Her treatment started the next day and the bright, bubbly little girl soon changed, causing horrible side effects from the powerful chemotherapy chemotherapy doctors used to blast her aggressive T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia. .
"During a very intense chemotherapy phase, she developed internal ulcers from mouth to buttock," said Batchelor.
"It was horrible, it had to be put on a morphine infusion for a long time, just to get it in. She could not eat, she was spitting blood, it was horrible."
Isla has had serious side effects of her treatment for aggressive leukemia.
Now, an Australian researcher could make a major breakthrough by preventing other children like her from having similar reactions.
The side effects of chemotherapy are common, ranging from nausea to hair loss and complications of the immune system. And that's only in the short run.
Given the constant growth of children's bodies, chemotherapy has long-term consequences, many of which are still unknown.
Charles de Bock of the Children's Cancer Research Institute in Sydney discovered that the use of an old drug against Alzheimer's disease could help treat T cell leukemia without any toxicity or side effects.
"A chance conversation with this researcher about Alzheimer's disease led to this idea of whether this particular drug was effective against leukemia," said Dr. de Bock.
"Everyone is trying to target this particular path (genetics) for a long time.
"Cancer researchers do not always talk to brain researchers and neuroscientists because we do not participate in the same conferences."
Dr. Charley Bock of the Children's Cancer Institute led the research.
The meeting with Roger Habets, from the Belgian research center VIB-KU Leuven, triggered the conversation about the disused drug, known as MRK-560.
"We created genetic models and it worked very well," said Dr. de Bock.
The hope is that MRK-560 can be used in combination with reduced doses of chemotherapy to accurately target cancer cells without damaging healthy cells.
"Normal chemo, like weeding your garden with a flamethrower, is very effective at removing weeds but causes incredible damage, among other things," said Dr. de Bock.
"Chemotherapy has short-term side effects, but we are dealing with children and therefore with long-term consequences – many of which are unknown, such as reduced fertility.
"If we can reduce the dose of chemotherapy and have a targeted precision drug, this should alleviate some of the long-term side effects."
Isla has had serious side effects of her treatment for aggressive leukemia.
Mr. Batchelor described the breakthrough as "incredibly exciting" and would have liked to have done it before the "horrible" treatment of Isla.
"Being able to treat it with little or no side effects is just amazing," he said.
"We still do not know what will be the side effects of Isla in 15 or 20 years, we do not know if she will be able to have children … the future is still unknown.
"Something like that, with low toxicity, is amazing – imagine being able to tell a parent that the treatment can have no side effects – it's phenomenal."
Dr. Charley Bock of the Children's Cancer Institute led the research.
Isla, now nine years old, is in remission but undergoes regular checkups to make sure she does not suffer from cancer.
"It was like being on a roller coaster.You went past one peak and another is waiting for you.Betterly, they are getting smaller and more and more distant.That is how we see the things."
Isla is now in remission.
It is still early, Dr. de Bock and Dr. Habets – who published the results of their groundbreaking study in this week's Science Translational Medicine journal – hope the drug will soon be used in combination with chemotherapy.
"We have a long way to go – it will take a few years and a lot of investment to remove that from our hands and to the children who really need it," he said.
"I guess because it's already manufactured and has been tested quite heavily, we should be able to reuse it fairly quickly."
[ad_2]
Source link
