Aggressive leukaemia puts healthy stem cells to sleep

Aggressive leukaemia puts healthy stem cells to sleep Tuesday 30 July 2013

An aggressive form of leukaemia actually puts healthy stem cells in the bone marrow to sleep, rather than replacing them with cancer cells as was previously thought, reveals a new UK study supported by Cancer Research UK.

This raises the possibility of being able to "reawaken" the sleeping cells, potentially offering an entirely new form of treatment for patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

AML is a form of cancer characterised by the rapid growth of abnormal white blood cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells.

Approximately 2,500 people are diagnosed with the condition in the UK each year, and AML can be fatal within weeks or months if left untreated. Around 2,300 people die each year from the disease.

The research was led by scientists at Queen Mary, University of London, with the support of researchers at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute.

Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, said: "Although major progress has been made in treating AML over the years, there's still an urgent need for more effective treatments to improve long-term survival.

"This study takes us an important step forwards in our understanding of what's going on in the bone marrow of people with AML, an area that we have not known enough about previously, and the challenge now is to turn this understanding into new treatments for patients."

Under normal circumstances, bone marrow produces special stem cells called 'haematopoietic' stem cells, which mature into adult blood cells, including a form called .

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Aggressive leukaemia puts healthy stem cells to sleep