The American Association for Cancer Research's reputable journal,
Clinical Cancer Research published a new study by Dr. Ali Bazarbachi for patients with relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia after hematopoietic cell transplantation. The study reports progressive improvement in the outcomes of patients carrying the Philadelphia chromosome.
Dr. Bazarbachi serves as professor of hematology and oncology; professor of anatomy, cell biology, and physiological sciences; and director of the bone marrow transplantation program at AUB. His research focuses on developing targeted therapies for leukemia and lymphoma and bone marrow transplantation. He is well known for his groundbreaking research in several areas, and for his continuous efforts in improving survival rates through a variety of research studies and a series of demonstrations.
Below are details of the study.
Survival Rate of Adult Patients With Relapsed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia After Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Has Steadily Increased Over the Past Two Decades
Study reports progressive improvement in the outcomes of patients carrying the Philadelphia chromosome.
PHILADELPHIA – For patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) carrying the Philadelphia chromosome and whose disease relapsed after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT), the two-year overall survival rate has nearly doubled from the period between 2000 and 2004 to the period between 2015 and 2019, according to a study published in
Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
“In the subset of ALL patients carrying the Philadelphia chromosome, post-transplant relapse occurs in up to 30 percent of the cases, and in earlier studies, long-term survival was dismal," said first and corresponding author
Ali Bazarbachi, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, and director of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program at the American University of Beirut. “However, several new therapeutic strategies have been recently approved for these patients, therefore it was important to study and compare the clinical outcomes between different time periods in the past 20 years."