With ten thousand estimated cases in the U.S. and the prolonged hospitalizations associated with treatment and complications, the disease represents a significant share of health care costs. Patients with myeloid leukemias respond to chemoradiotherapy and bone marrow transplantation, but many relapse with drug resistant disease. Both de novo resistant and chemoradiotherapy refractory leukemias have an extremely dismal prognosis and novel therapeutic drugs are needed to treat these patients. To this end, we have synthesized and tested Fusion toxins consisting of cell-specific ligands fused to protein synthesis inactivating toxins represent a class of reagents which may kill cytotoxic drug resistant leukemic blasts. A new study has been initiated for patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia.
Costs associated with the leukemia are the responsibility of the patient.
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