Helping healthy cells could be key to fighting leukaemia

New research has shown that keeping healthy blood cells alive could be more important in fighting leukaemia than eradicating cancerous cells directly.

Researchers at Imperial College London have shown that keeping healthy blood cells alive could be a more important tool in the fight against leukaemia than keeping cancerous cells at bay.

The team used computer modelling to show that maintaining a friendly environment for healthy cells was more effective than targeting the damaged cells directly. This result could change the way leukaemia is treated, as cancer treatment has traditionally relied on fighting disease rather than maintaining health.

A better understanding of the processes taking place in the bone marrow could therefore allow doctors to take earlier and more targeted action in combating leukaemia.

A cancer of the blood, leukaemia is thought to survive and grow through the action of leukaemia stem cells (LSCs), which multiply within the bone marrow. Here they face competition for resources with haematopoietic stem cells (or HSCs), which are responsible for producing and maintaining all the different varieties of healthy blood cell within the body.

A paper, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, is the first attempt to model competition between these two types of cells using methods borrowed from the world of ecology.