Leukaemia treatment

Researchers in Sweden and Norway have developed a new therapy for blood cancer.

The approach has the potential to spare healthy T and B cells - cells that are part of the immune system - while eliminating cancerous cells.

The teams from the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Norway, tested the method on mice and on cell samples from patients, and are now planning a clinical trial to test the therapy on patients with the disease.

The study, in Nature Biotechnology, showed that the therapy kills cancer cells from patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia - a type of cancer that affects white blood cells - which is the most common form of childhood leukaemia.