UF researchers see progress in treating leukemia

Dr. Christopher R. Cogle has discovered that some types of leukemia can integrate into the lining of blood vessels, causing relapse in patients.

University of Florida researchers say they've made promising progress in tests and trials to improve leukemia treatment but expect it will be several more years before their work possibly brings a new drug to market.

Their goal is to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy and reduce relapse and recurrence in patients with acute myeloid leukemia, a particularly deadly form of the blood cancer.

The five-year survival rate for people diagnosed with AML is about 24 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.

In 2011, Dr. Christopher R. Cogle, an associate professor at the College of Medicine and scholar in clinical research for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, started clinical trials using an experimental drug on patients with AML.

Developed by drug manufacturer OxiGENE, the experimental drug, currently known as OXi4503, is intended to separate leukemia cells from the blood vessel walls, where researchers believe they embed and hide among the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels.

Cogle said there is a high level of relapse among leukemia patients and that led researchers to the belief that the cells were somehow "hiding out" and being missed by chemotherapy treatment.

"It dislodges the leukemia cells out of their nests," Cogle said of OXi4503. "We have data that shows once these cells get shaken out of their nests, they activate, they wake up. Then, they are more susceptible to traditional chemotherapy."

Right now, the drug is in its early stage of clinical trials. Cogle said it would likely take up to 10 years of additional trials and review before the drug might receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to go to market.

A recently released UF study also had promising findings for the basic premise of the drug, researchers said. Conducted by Cogle and Ed Scott, the director of the UF Program in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, the study injected human leukemia cells into white mice and then treated the mice with chemotherapy. The researchers then looked at why some leukemia cells survived and found that some were attaching to the blood vessel walls.

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UF researchers see progress in treating leukemia