A new, gentler regimen for treating Leukaemia has been developed using a “Singapore approach”. Leukaemia is the most common form of children’s cancer in the country, but the new method of treatment has helped to improve the wellness of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, allowing them to spend less time in hospital and incur lower bills.
In Singapore, the ailment newly affects the wellbeing of three in every 10 young people each year. However, doctors from the National University Hospital (NUH), KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and two centres in Malaysia closely studied a standard treatment method in Western countries and, in Singapore fashion, streamlined and adapted it for their own use. Based on their study of 556 patients aged under the age of 18 from 2003 to 2009, the researchers discovered that they could tailor treatment more effectively by closely tracking patients’ disease levels. This meant that, more importantly, patients can be treated equally well, if not better, with a smaller and less toxic combination of drugs.
In the crucial first five weeks of treatment, children with leukaemia usually get a combination of four drugs. Daunorubicin is one of these drugs, and its toxicity causes severe side effects such as fever and ulcers. However, principal investigator Allen Yeoh, senior consultant in paediatric haematology- oncology at NUH, commented that the majority of patients in the study, which was published in leading cancer publication Journal of Clinical Oncology, could do without this toxic drug. After the first week of the new treatment, patients are screened for leukaemia levels and only those deemed to be responding poorly go on to be treated with the four drugs.
Yet 87% of those who participated in the study only need to be treated with the remaining three drugs. The doctors specially adapted a test, which is used to screen the patients again in the fifth week, and if they have less then one leukaemia cell in 10,000 cells, they get further reduced treatment. Thanks to the new procedure, patients now only need to spend a week in hospital, rather than the common month, said Yeoh, and they face less risk of complications. After subsidy, patients previously spent about $15,000 for five weeks of treatment with the four drugs, and this has since been shaved down to an average of $5,000 to $7,000.
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