Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia News and Research RSS Feed - Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia News and Research

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a cancer of the white blood cells, the cells in the body that normally fight infections. There are two main types of white blood cells-lymphoid cells and myeloid cells. ALL affects lymphoid cells.

Leukemia cells are abnormal cells that cannot do what normal blood cells do. The abnormal cells are immature white blood cells that cannot help the body fight infections. For this reason, children with ALL often get infections and have fevers.

ALL is also called acute lymphocytic leukemia. It is the most common leukemia in children.
Pfizer halts Phase 3 open-label, two-arm study of lymphoma drug

Pfizer halts Phase 3 open-label, two-arm study of lymphoma drug

Pfizer Inc. announced today the discontinuation of a Phase 3 randomized, open-label, two-arm study (B1931008) evaluating the safety and efficacy of the investigational compound inotuzumab ozogamicin in patients with relapsed or refractory CD22+ aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma who are not candidates for intensive high-dose chemotherapy. [More]
MorphoSys initiates Phase 2 clinical trial of MOR208 in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients

MorphoSys initiates Phase 2 clinical trial of MOR208 in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients

Xencor announced today that MorphoSys AG has dosed the first patient in a Phase 2 clinical trial of MOR208 in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. [More]
Omeros' GPCR platform unlocks new drug targets against multiple sclerosis

Omeros' GPCR platform unlocks new drug targets against multiple sclerosis

Omeros Corporation today announced positive data in the most commonly used model for studying the clinical and pathological features of multiple sclerosis (MS), further advancing its development program of GPR17-targeting compounds for the treatment of MS. Compounds previously discovered by Omeros that inhibit GPR17, an orphan G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) unlocked by Omeros, significantly improved function from experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in mice. [More]

Exposure to traffic-related air pollution associated with increases in rare childhood cancers

Scientists from UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health led by Julia Heck, an assistant researcher in the school's epidemiology department and a member of UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, have found a possible link between exposure to traffic-related air pollution and several childhood cancers. [More]
New immunotherapies are seldom developed for childhood cancer

New immunotherapies are seldom developed for childhood cancer

More often than not, cancer immunotherapies that work in adults are used in modified ways in children. Seldom are new therapies developed just for children, primarily because of the small number of pediatric patients relative to the adult cancer patient population. [More]
American Cancer Society announces new research, training grants for fiscal year 2013

American Cancer Society announces new research, training grants for fiscal year 2013

The American Cancer Society, the largest non-government, not-for-profit funding source of cancer research in the United States, has awarded 175 national research and training grants totaling $79,073,250 for fiscal year 2013. [More]
Physician-researcher to lead pediatric Dream Team to create new treatments for childhood cancers

Physician-researcher to lead pediatric Dream Team to create new treatments for childhood cancers

A physician-researcher from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia will lead the first-ever pediatric "Dream Team" solely focused on creating new treatments for the most challenging childhood cancers. [More]
Scientists develop new cancer immunotherapy treatment for children with high-risk solid tumors

Scientists develop new cancer immunotherapy treatment for children with high-risk solid tumors

Recently, research using adoptive T-cell immunotherapy in blood cancers have shown success, most notably in the case of a seven-year-old girl whose leukemia went into remission using altered T-cells and a disabled HIV virus. [More]

FDA clears ERYTECH Pharma' IND to start Phase I clinical trial of ERYASP in patients with ALL

ERYTECH Pharma SA announced today that it has received clearance of its Investigational New Drug Application from the United States Food and Drug Administration to initiate a Phase I clinical trial of its product ERYASP, L-asparaginase loaded erythrocytes, in patients 40 years or older with newly diagnosed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. [More]
Novel cell therapy effective in treating aggressive form of childhood leukemia

Novel cell therapy effective in treating aggressive form of childhood leukemia

Two children with an aggressive form of childhood leukemia had a complete remission of their disease—showing no evidence of cancer cells in their bodies—after treatment with a novel cell therapy that reprogrammed their immune cells to rapidly multiply and destroy leukemia cells. [More]

Survivors of childhood leukemia and lymphoma are at greater risk of chronic fatigue: Study

Chronic fatigue, a persistent lack of energy that does not improve with rest, is at least three times more prevalent among adult survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphoma experienced during childhood or adolescence than in the general adult population, according to an article in Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology, a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. [More]

Study links inherited variations in few genes to increased risk of pediatric leukemia

Humans have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes that carry instructions for assembling the proteins that do the work of cells. Work led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital found that children who inherit certain variations in four particular genes are at much higher risk of developing acute lymphoblastic leukemia. [More]

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital receives patent for genetically modified human immune cells for caner therapy

The United States Patent and Trademark Office today awarded St. Jude Children's Research Hospital U.S. patent number 8,399,645 for St. Jude's invention of compositions for genetically modifying human immune cells so they can destroy some of the most common forms of cancer in children and adults. [More]

Targeting Mer receptors sensitize AML and ALL to chemotherapies

Two University of Colorado Cancer Center studies show that the protein receptor Mer is overexpressed in many leukemias, and that inhibition of this Mer receptor results in the death of leukemia cells - without affecting surrounding, healthy cells. [More]
Anti-metabolic syndrome efforts needed for young ALL survivors

Anti-metabolic syndrome efforts needed for young ALL survivors

Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia are at risk for developing the metabolic syndrome during maintenance therapy, suggest study findings. [More]
Distinct bone marrow niches can nurture different types of blood stem cells

Distinct bone marrow niches can nurture different types of blood stem cells

In research that could one day improve the success of stem cell transplants and chemotherapy, scientists have found that distinct niches exist in bone marrow to nurture different types of blood stem cells. [More]
Seattle Genetics commences two SGN-CD19A phase I trials in hematologic malignancies

Seattle Genetics commences two SGN-CD19A phase I trials in hematologic malignancies

Seattle Genetics, Inc. today announced the initiation of two phase I clinical trials of SGN-CD19A, one for patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and one for patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas. [More]
AIBioTech announces implementation of L-asparaginase activity assay for pediatric ALL

AIBioTech announces implementation of L-asparaginase activity assay for pediatric ALL

AIBioTech is pleased to announce implementation of a new laboratory derived test to measure L-asparaginase levels in patients being treated with any of the current asparaginase drugs including: Oncaspar, Kidrolase, Erwinaze, and Elspar. [More]
Hope against dangerous form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Hope against dangerous form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia

After an intensive three-year hunt through the genome, medical researchers have pinpointed mutations that leads to drug resistance and relapse in the most common type of childhood cancer-the first time anyone has linked the disease's reemergence to specific genetic anomalies. [More]

Novartis receives FDA approval for Ph+ acute lymphoblastic leukemia

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved a new use of Gleevec (imatinib) to treat children newly diagnosed with Philadelphia chromosome positive (Ph+) acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). [More]