Nice newspaper article

Great to see an article (and photo of Dr T) in today’s Sunday Telegraph page 21 :


AUSSIE DRUG TRIAL HOPE FOR RARE LEUKAEMIAJane Hansen
An Australian drug trial may offer hope to the worst form of a blood cancer that carries a very poor prognosis.Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) is a blood cancer that is difficult to treat but Extramedullary Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (EMD AML) occurs when the leukaemia cancer cells move from the patient’s bone marrow to some other organ or tissue and form a solid tumour. These tumours often do not respond to treatment with normal leukaemia drugs.In conjunction with Newcastle University, Australian cancer drug development company Race Oncology has begun human trials of a drug called Zantrene, which has showed promise in a smaller trial in Israel in 2020.Race Oncology’s chief scientific officer Dr Daniel Tillett said AML is not only one of the most difficult cancers to treat but it progresses rapidly.“Before the first treatments were developed in the 1960s, the average AML patient survived less than eight weeks from diagnosis to death. Even today, many patients live less than 12 months. It’s a terrible cancer, and the EMD form is even worse.” Dr Tillett said.The trial, open now to patients with EMD AML, is using Zantrene, which is an older chemotherapy drug discovered in 1976 but since dropped.“We did a trial in Israel in 2020 and 40 per cent responded and 100 per cent of those that had EMD responded to the drug, so we decided to target that subgroup in this trial,” he said. Race is hoping to offer patients a better and more effective treatment option with their Phase two trial.