Children with lymphoblastic leukemia with a chance to be cured
Over 1100 children in Poland suffer from cancer every year. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common malignant tumor in this group. Thanks to the financing of the Medical Research Agency, the Medical University of Lodz has started a research project CALL-POL, which will cover all children in Poland with newly diagnosed ALL.
The main goal of the CALL-POL project is to facilitate access to the latest therapies for Polish children with acute leukaemia. The proposed therapies will be available for all children in Poland. Identification of treatment options will be done using advanced and ultra-modern molecular diagnostic tools.
Financing from the Medical Research Agency will allow the use of modern drugs, whose action is molecularly targeted and tailored to each patient individually. It will probably be the most modern leukemia treatment in the world. This therapeutic approach aims to increase the cure of leukemia in children to about 95%.
The methods proposed within the CALL-POL project for the treatment of leukemia in children place Polish oncohematology among the best in the world, and what is most important, all children with diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia in the country will benefit from modern therapy financed by the Medical Research Agencies - emphasizes Prof. Wojciech Młynarski - the leader of the CALL-POL project.
The study group will include children with diagnosed ALL from all centres of pediatric oncology in Poland. According to the incidence rates, it is planned to include approx. 550-600 children and the average observation time is about 46 months. The harmonisation of diagnostic procedures will include centralised molecular and genetic analysis of leukemic cells, which will allow the treatment methods to be adapted individually for each patient.Additionally, the modification of the therapy will be based on an examination of the response to the applied treatment, which will be carried out by identifying even single leukemia cells in the bone marrow.
The Medical University of Lodz forms a consortium with the Silesian Medical University, the Medical University of Lublin and the Institute of Innovative Technologies in Katowice, which will jointly conduct nationwide controlled clinical trials involving the treatment of children in Poland with leukaemia. To this end, the clinical partners in the project are all Polish centres of pediatric oncology, 16 hospitals in total. The CALL-POL consortium will be connected to the AIEOP-BFM network, which is the world's largest international network of clinical trials for leukaemia and lymphoma in children. The cost of the research is over PLN 28 million and the financing comes entirely from the Medical Research Agency.