大象传媒

Could a British medical trial herald a cure for the commonest type of blood cancer? 大象传媒 reporter Simon Cox has had Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia or CLL for more than a decade. Like him, many patients don鈥檛 have health problems for years. For those who do need treatment, options include chemotherapy or bone marrow transplants.

CLL is a disease of the immune system 鈥� the lymphocyte cells which fight infections and then die, instead grow out of control and can鈥檛 be 鈥渟witched off鈥�.

Simon Cox talks to Peter Hillmen, professor of experimental haematology at St James鈥� hospital in Leeds in northern England who鈥檚 on a mission to find a cure. He鈥檚 recruited 50 CLL patients 鈥� whose disease returned after chemotherapy - onto the Clarity trial. They are given two non-chemotherapy drugs - Venetoclax and Ibrutinib 鈥� to target elements of CLL - the proliferation of cells and their inability to die off.

Andy Wright is on the trial. Initially 84% of his bone marrow cells contained CLL. After eight months that figure had fallen to just 0.0085%.

A third of the trial patients have no trace of CLL 鈥� an unprecedented response which Professor Hillmen believes means a cure is now much closer.

(Photo: Simon Cox with Andy Wright, one of the patients on the Clarity trial 漏 大象传媒)