acute myeloid leukemia

For patients with an often-deadly form of leukemia, new research by Timothy J. Ley, MD, and colleagues suggests that lingering cancer-related mutations – detected after initial treatment with chemotherapy – are associated with an increased risk of relapse and poor survival.

New research by Daniel Link, MD, and colleagues at The Genome Institute at Washington University has revealed that mutations that accumulate randomly as a person ages can play a role in a fatal form of leukemia that develops after treatment for another cancer.

The National Cancer Institute has awarded two major grants totaling $26 million to leukemia researchers and physicians at the School of Medicine. The funding has the potential to lead to novel therapies for leukemia that improve survival and reduce treatment-related side effects. Pictured are cancer cells from a patient with acute myeloid leukemia.

A consortium of researchers led by the School of Medicine has identified virtually all of the major mutations that drive acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a fast-growing blood cancer in adults that often is difficult to treat. The dark lines in the image pictured show all of the major mutations for AML that occurred in one patient with the disease.

Hundreds of mutations exist in leukemia cells at the time of diagnosis but nearly all occur randomly as a part of normal aging and are not related to cancer, new research at Washington University School of Medicine shows.

A new drug makes chemotherapy more effective in treating acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells, according to John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at Washington University. Instead of attacking these cells directly, the drug helps drive them out of the bone marrow and into the bloodstream, where they are more vulnerable to chemotherapy.

By mapping the evolution of cancer cells in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes who later died of leukemia, Timothy Graubert, Matthew Walter and their Washington University colleagues have found clues to suggest that targeted cancer drugs should be aimed at mutations that develop early in the disease.

The chemotherapy drugs required to push a common form of adult leukemia into remission may contribute to DNA damage that can lead to a relapse of the disease in some patients, findings of a new study suggest.

Researchers have discovered that a subtype of leukemia characterized by a poor prognosis is fueled by mutations in pathways distinctly different from a seemingly similar leukemia associated with a much better outcome.

Scientists have uncovered a critical genetic mutation in some patients with myelodysplastic syndromes — a group of blood cancers that can progress to a fatal form of leukemia. The research team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis also found evidence that patients with the mutation are more likely to develop acute leukemia.