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CNN Live At Daybreak

New Drug Provides Hope for Leukemia Patients

Aired July 26, 2001 - 07:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: In health news today, a new experimental drug is providing hope for people suffering with a certain type of leukemia.

CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here with the very latest.

How big a breakthrough is this?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, some doctors are saying that for this particular type of leukemia, it is a big breakthrough. One of the doctors involved in a new study on this drug said the results were amazing. And unlike some traditional therapies, they were amazing without severe side effects.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): Six years ago, Jeffrey Desind was diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia. Chemotherapy, the only standard treatment, worked for a while, but then the cancer came back with a vengeance.

JEFFREY DESIND, LEUKEMIA PATIENT: I think the doctors had me buried six feet under, and I'm walking around, and every day it's another day.

COHEN: He says his cancer is in remission and he's alive today because his doctors found out about a small study at the National Cancer Institute using a new drug -- so new, it doesn't have a real name yet, it's called BL22.

In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 16 patients were given BL22, 11 went into remission, meaning doctors found very few cancer cells or even none at all, and two went into partial remission.

Here's how it works. BL22 attaches itself to the surface of the leukemia cell. It then sends in a toxin that kills the cell.

(on camera): Hairy cell leukemia is rare. There are only about 1,000 new cases each year in the U.S. But scientists say they hope that the principle behind this new drug, which is given intravenously could be applied to other types of cancer.

(voice-over): BL22, like many new cancer drugs, targets the cancer directly, unlike chemotherapy and radiation which kill good cells along with the bad.

DR. IRA PASTAN, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: One of the advantages of this therapy is it doesn't have prolonged side effects, such as bone marrow suppression, so we frequently can retreat patients.

COHEN: But the researchers warn that even with repeat treatments, BL22 might not work forever. This is just the initial phase of their research and the longest it's worked in any patient so far is two years.

PASTAN: In cancer treatment we rarely speak of cures.

COHEN: Jeffrey Desind says he doesn't think in terms of cures either. For him, each day is a gift he otherwise might not have had.

DESIND: I went from under the ground to walking around.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: The next step in this research will be to try this drug out on an additional about 35 patients, and then they will still have to do more studies. In fact, it will probably be years before this drug is on the market.

LIN: But a very interesting trend. You and I were just talking during the piece. My brother, who is a cancer researcher, is working on a cancer-eating bacteria.

COHEN: Yes.

LIN: And it is just a more targeted approach. It's really very different than the conventional therapies of radiation and chemo.

COHEN: Right. Exactly. The conventional therapies kind of attack a whole bunch of things, including things that it doesn't want to attack but it attacks it anyhow. And so you attack good tissue that does good things, and that's why you have the nausea from chemotherapy. The doctor in the piece talked about bone marrow suppression. You don't want that to happen. It is much better to just target these individual cancer cells. And that's why this is so exciting. A cancer doctor said to me the other day, you know, five years from now you are not going to recognize cancer therapy. It is going to look so different.

LIN: It might be just taking a pill.

COHEN: Exactly.

LIN: All right. Thanks, Elizabeth.

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