New Blood Test Therapy Being Trialed in UK

Blood cancer sufferers could be given renewed hope as researchers test new experimental drug treatments. A network of hospital clinics in the UK is pioneering the use of promising treatments that haven't yet reached clinical trials.Our reporter Li Dong has the details.

Blood cancer kills more people each year in the UK than breast cancer.

Two years ago Ian Smith could barely walk, let alone dig in his garden. Then he was diagnosed with leukemia and given just weeks to live.

But Smith persuaded doctors to let him try an experimental drug. Now he shows no traces of blood cancer.

A network of 13 clinical trial centers across the UK will give other patients the chance to try treatments that have shown promise in laboratory tests. And that's just what leukemia patients need, Smith says.

"This is what you want in this game. You want hope right to the end. Without going on this clinical trial, I would have been a goner. I would not be here."

Smith recovered so quickly that he was able to have a bone marrow transplant. Now the cancer has gone.

In the UK, more than 12,000 patients a year die from blood cancer, including leukemia and lymphoma.

But while several promising drugs have passed laboratory tests, clinical trials have proved too complex to carry out.

Many blood cancers are too rare to find enough patients well enough at any one time to try out new treatments. And the pharmaceutical industry has baulked at the cost.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Research Charity is funding the trials, which are supposed to last two years.Charlie Craddock, the charity's clinical trials adviser, says the trials will help save lives.

"Although a significant number of people are cured with drugs or transplants, many people are destined to die of resistant or relapsed disease. So there is an urgent need to develop new drugs and transplant therapies. The UK already has a whole network of experts, and they are trying to provide extra resources for our world-class clinicians to deliver on these vital questions."

Patients like Ian Smith are living proof of how trials of experimental drugs can provide a lifeline for some sufferers. Craddock bemoans the fact that doctors routinely have to turn down promising new drugs because they don't have the resources to conduct early-stage clinical trials. He also believes there is a moral case for getting new drugs out there as soon as possible, because of the nature of the disease.

Ian Smith is perfectly in tune with Craddock's argument. He says he couldn't agree more.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.