Researchers in Hospital 57357 conducted a systematic study to evaluate the treating medications of acute leukemia recurrence by correlating between its efficiency and economic cost.
The study was conducted in cooperation with Oxford University and St. Jude research Hospital. Dr. Ranin Soleiman, the main researcher, shares that they conducted a systematic analytical review of all the published research studies regarding the treating medications of leukemia recurrence in terms of correlating between their efficiency and economic cost.
The study targeted two of the most common leukemia types, Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and Acute Lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), where their prevalence rate is 30% and 40 % respectively in comparison to all pediatric cancer types. Survival rate goes down remarkably in case of the disease recurrence.
The study results revealed that CAR-T cell therapy, a type of immuno-therapy is the best treatment in terms of efficiency, despite its high cost which would reach 400 thousand dollars for one patient. The study, nevertheless, indicates that this type of therapy achieves high survival rate in the short term while it wasn’t yet tested for the long term.
Two other medications come next on the list in terms of efficiency: Clofarabine and Blinatumomab bearing in mind that chemotherapy offers less chance for survival but at a lesser cost.
The research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Alaa Elhadad, head of pediatric oncology and bone marrow transplantation department.
Published in the Expert Review of Hematology journal
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