Science / Medicine : Drug Effective Against Leukemia

A derivative of Vitamin A has produced “striking” remissions in nine of 11 patients suffering from a common type of adult leukemia, researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City reported last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results show that the drug tretinoin “is a safe and highly effective agent for inducing complete remission in patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia,” the researchers said.

Acute promyelocytic leukemia, which makes up about 15% of adult leukemias, is characterized by cells that have misplaced a chunk of genetic material from chromosome 17 to 15. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes in most cells.

When the researchers gave patients a new formulation of the drug tretinoin, they found that the cancer cells stopped growing wildly and began to behave as mature, non-cancerous cells. Researchers in China and France have reported similar results during the past three years.