🦋 In The News Could a drug for breast cancer be used as a leukemia treatment? ▫️Researchers at Newcastle University in England have recently discovered that an approved breast cancer drug could be used as a leukemia treatment. ▫️Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a form of cancer that affects the bone marrow and blood. - It is not a singular disease, but a group of leukemias that develop in cells within the bone marrow called myeloid cells. These myeloid cells are red blood cells, platelets and all white blood cells except lymphocytes. ▫️A recent study conducted by researchers at Newcastle University in #England uncovered that a drug, called palbociclib, which is currently being used to treat breast cancer is effective for leukemia treatment. - In addition to this, palbociclib has side-effects which are much less toxic than current chemotherapeutic agents which provide it with a great advantage. ▫️This study was carried out on cell lines in the laboratory and within mice, and the results were published in Cancer Cell. ▫️The results from this study consistently demonstrated that palbociclib significantly decreased the leukemic load, delayed the progression of AML, and increased the median survival from 29 days to 59 days. ▫️Palbociclib, is a tablet which is used to prevent tumour growth and the spread of breast cancer in terminally ill patients for up to two years. The drug acts by inhibiting cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and CDK6, which are both crucial for driving the cells onto DNA replication, leading to cancer. ▫️During this recent study, researchers identified Cyclin D2 (CCDN2) as an important transmitter for a protein that drives leukemic propagation. ▫️Around 10-15% of all AML have been discovered to have CCDN2 mutations. The exciting discovery from this study is that leukemic cells expressing the CCDN2 mutation remain sensitive to CDK4/6 inhibitors such as palbocicloib.
