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One day with a blood sample, you will be able to predict, years before the diagnosis, who will get sick of acute myeloid leukemia, a very aggressive blood tumor that suddenly appears. In fact, thanks to international collaboration, it has been discovered that people destined to fall into the blood show recognizable genetic modifications already years before the onset of the disease.
Known in the journal Nature, the perspective is due to an international research team coordinated by scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute of the University of Cambridge in Great Britain and the European Institute of Bioinformatics (EMBL) -EBI) and based on the EPIC (European Prospective Investigation in Cancer and Nutrition), one of the most gigantic and courageous epidemiological studies ever undertaken.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a disease that develops from the bone marrow and progresses rapidly. It affects the "precursors" of blood cells in the marrow that are used to form white blood cells, red blood cells or platelets. Precisely because it affects the precursors of blood cells, LMA causes anemia, a low number of platelets and an increase or decrease in white blood cells, so it endangers hemorrhages and infections among others.
According to data from the Italian Association Tumor Registries (AIRTUM) can estimate every year just over 2,000 new cases of acute myeloid leukemia in Italy: 1,200 in men and 900 in women. The disease is more common in men than in women and adults over 60 years. It is rare before the age of 45 and in Italy, it represents 13% of leukaemias in children from 0 to 14 years old.
In this study, it was shown that even though the disease began suddenly, as nowhere, its "roots" are already "etched" in the patients' DNA for years and are therefore recognizable before the beginning of the disease.
To find out, the experts compared blood samples from Epic participants collected and stored for a long time in a biobank. When the samples were taken, all the subjects involved were in good health. Over time, some people have contracted cancer and among them there have been diagnoses of acute myeloid leukemia. The scientists compared the blood of 124 people who then became ill with this blood leukemia of 676 people who remained healthy. Well, it appeared that already years before the onset of the disease in the blood of those who would then be suffering from leukemia, genetic changes are distinguished in specific points of the DNA. These "pretumor" genetic changes could become the basis of a predictive blood test for leukemia.
"Our study – says one of Cambridge authors George Vbadiliou – provides for the first time evidence that it is possible to identify people at risk of developing acute myeloid leukemia. years before the onset of the disease
We hope to develop reliable screening tests to identify people at risk and direct research to prevent or slow the progression of this disease. the daily prevention of this leukemia becomes an effective alternative to the treatment of the disease itself. "
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