Game-changing Australian blood cancer treatment triples patients’ chances

A “game-changing” new Australian blood cancer treatment triples patients chances of survival, being cancer free and avoiding serious, life-long complications.

Stephanie Jouhari, 27, took part in the trial five years ago when her leukemia relapsed. She is now in remission. Picture: Supplied

A “game-changing” Australian blood cancer treatment triples patients chances of surviving, being cancer free and avoiding serious, life-long complications, new research shows.

The breakthrough is set to change a key part of blood stem cell transplants — which can have life-threatening side effects — and uses an existing, affordable drug.

The research, led by Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital and Monash University, has already prompted several Australian health services to switch to the new treatment and several other countries are expected to follow in their foot steps.

The five-year trial involved multiple Australian and New Zealand hospitals and more than 100 leukaemia patients who had received a blood stem cell transplant from a matched donor.

The transplants are a lifesaving blood cancer treatment that allow patients to receive healthy blood-making cells, but they are also high risk.

About one in three patients reject the cells — a serious complication known as “graft versus host disease”, where the donor’s immune system attacks their healthy organs.

Ms Jouhari is now in remission. Picture: Supplied

Alfred haematologist and Monash University Professor David Curtis said doctors gave patients a combination of drugs post-transplant to try and reduce that risk but it did not “prevent it always”.

He said they wanted to find a better option and their trial found a new, less toxic drug combination halved patients’ risk of GVD without increasing the risk of a cancer relapse.

“In people who got the standard treatment, after three years only one in six were alive, free of their disease and without having suffered graft versus host disease,” he said.

“With the new treatment, it’s one in two. You’re three times more likely to be alive without disease and without having suffered graft versus host disease.”

Professor Curtis said it was important to spare patients from GVD, which was fatal for a small proportion and, for others, a less deadly but chronic, disfiguring disease.

“It lasts basically forever,” he said.

“It can affect any organ, but it often affects people’s skin.”

Every year, about 150 of the 600 patients who get a blood stem cell transplants in Australia and New Zealand suffer a serious complication.

Alfred Health clinical haematologist and Monash University Professor David Curtis led the study.

Prof Curtis said it caused issues including cataracts, hair-loss and a tightening of the skin that could look like a bad burn, and medications weren’t always effective.

The Australian protocol swapped one of the two drugs used in the standard treatment with an affordable chemotherapy drug. The study was sponsored by the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Leukaemia survivor Stephanie Jouhari, 27, was in the trial and received the new treatment after her cancer relapsed at the age of 22.

Ms Jouhari, now in remission, said research that didn’t just improve survival rates — but also what that post-cancer life looked like.

“I want to be where I can be, healed and healthy and at the same level as everyone else who’s in my 20s as well and not feel like I’ve got all these other obstacles now to face for the rest of my life,” she said.

“It’s already a difficult time so to make it less likely for there to be ongoing health issues . . . it’s just huge . . . If we can continue funding and researching and doing these clinical trials, it’ll just mean that the next group of people who unfortunately have to face this disease can walk away with much better prognosis but also a lot less suffering and trauma from the actual treatment itself.”

Originally published as Game-changing Australian blood cancer treatment triples patients’ chances