Cancer Treatment:This artical appeared in the Brithish Daily Telegraph.

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Trial of 'accurate' radiotherapy could transform treatment for bone cancer

The first patient has been treated with a new form of radiotherapy that

could almost eliminate side effects of blood-cancer treatments.

By , Medical Editor

Last Updated: 9:13AM GMT 27 Dec 2008

Clinical trials are being carried out in the UK using radiotherapy that is

highly targeted so can be given at much greater doses to destroy cancerous

cells in the bone marrow without harming healthy cells.

ine Pain, 58, from the Isle of Wight, became the first patient in the

world to receive the radiotherapy.

Mrs Pain, who has a cancer of the blood called multiple myeloma, was able to

return home after her radiotherapy to await her bone marrow transplant. A

conventional total body irradiation would have meant a long stay in

hospital.

She said: " The only side-effects were a little temporary tiredness and mild

sickness; other than that I felt very, very well. It was incredible to be

walking around knowing that something inside me was fighting the cancer, but

I couldn't feel it at all.

" The beauty of it was that I had the big dose of radiotherapy in the morning

and I was at home by 5pm the same evening. " The two-year trial at

Southampton General Hospital will involve 80 patients, half of whom will

receive the new radiotherapy with chemotherapy and the other half will have

chemotherapy alone.

The early results are " very encouraging " , doctors said.

The radiotherapy is used to kill the cancer cells in the system before a

transplant of healthy stem cells to replace the lost ones.

The same dose of traditional radiotherapy would cause severe or even fatal

damage to the body, proving toxic to the liver and kidneys.

But because the new system delivers a radioisotope that attaches only to the

surface of cancer cells, the healthy tissue is not affected.

The treatment is being tested on patients with multiple myeloma, but it may

be extended to other cancers of the blood and bone marrow such as leukaemia.

Multiple myeloma and leukaemia affect 11,000 people in the UK each year.

Dr Kim Orchard, a senior lecturer at the University of Southampton's School

of Medicine who is leading the trial, said: " Radiotherapy is used to clear

the bone marrow of myeloma cells before a stem-cell transplant. Current

treatment uses high doses of radiation, which are delivered by X-rays, but

the sensitivity of healthy organs limits the dose that can be tolerated.

" Previous attempts to use antibodies to deliver the radioactivity have been

frustrated by their accumulation in the liver, lungs and kidneys, which can

cause grave complications. The key to this new treatment is that the

antibody accumulates only in the bone marrow.

" We hope that the trial will show a clear benefit in better and longer

remissions from myeloma. If we are successful, this approach offers great

promise for the treatment of a range of other blood cancers. "

Dr Grant, Scientific Consultant at Leukaemia Research, which is

funding the study, said: " This trial is very exciting. One of the main

reasons why stem cell transplants have been less successful in the long-term

treatment of myeloma is that patients are not cleared of all the cancer

cells before the transplant.

" This new radiotherapy is not only more effective and potentially cheaper

than existing treatments, it is far less toxic for the patient. It also

enables patients to go home immediately after the procedure, reducing time

spent in hospital. "

With Love

Alan

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