British doctors have found a gentler treatment for children whose leukaemia has come back, which could boost survival and quality of life, a Great Ormond Street Hospital study has found.
The Independent reports that the new regime reduces the need for intensive chemotherapy and eliminates deaths linked to treatment in children with relapsed leukaemia.
Led by doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), the UKALL Rel2020 study found that children and young people with relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) can be treated safely with significantly less intensive chemotherapy.
The study involved 188 children and young people aged one to 24 – taken from 25 UK paediatric cancer centres between 2020 and 2024 – having less intensive chemotherapy before transitioning to blinatumomab, a targeted immunotherapy designed to tell the immune system to attack leukaemia cells.
The new approach achieved remission rates of 92%, while long-term survival (82% after three years) was comparable to children on more intensive traditional treatment plans.
No patients died during the early phase of treatment, which experts said represents a big leap forward in care.
ALL is the most common childhood cancer, with around 400 new cases each year in Britain.
Although cure rates for newly diagnosed disease are high, the cancer coming back remains an issue.
Dr David O’Connor, consultant in paediatric haematology at GOSH, said of the study: “This approach marks a major step forward in developing kinder treatments for children with relapsed cancer.
“The early phase of treatment has traditionally carried significant risks, but by using lower-intensity chemotherapy and moving rapidly to blinatumomab, we were able to eliminate treatment-related deaths without compromising effectiveness.”
According to GOSH, the clinical trial differs from others because it was delivered as routine NHS care, making the results more representative of real-world patients.
The findings were published as a research letter in the journal Leukaemia.
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