Scientists create latest test to discover people prone to developing myeloid leukaemias

Scientists have created a brand new test for identifying people prone to developing acute myeloid leukaemia and related cancers, years before they do. The brand new platform, ‘MN-predict’, will allow doctors and scientists to discover those in danger and to design latest treatments to forestall them from developing these potentially lethal cancers.

Researchers on the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (CSCI), the University of Cambridge’s Department of Haematology, and Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias (ISPA) analyzed data from greater than 400,000 individuals participating in the UK Biobank.

Using this data, the scientists have created “MN- predict”, a platform for predicting the danger of developing blood cancers similar to acute myeloid leukaemia, myelodysplastic syndromes and myeloproliferative neoplasms over a 10-15-year period. This test, now available in NHS clinics, requires patients to offer a blood sample from which DNA is extracted for limited sequencing, alongside basic blood cell counts. With this information, MN-predict identifies those at high risk of any of those cancers and will be utilized in specialist clinics for leukaemia prevention.

Everyone knows that prevention is best than cure, however it just isn’t easy to forestall diseases like leukaemia without knowing who’s in danger. MN-predict makes it possible to discover at-risk individuals, and we hope it could develop into a necessary a part of future leukaemia prevention programmes.”

Professor George Vassiliou, senior creator of the study

The myeloid neoplasms are a bunch of related cancers encompassing acute myeloid leukaemia, myelodysplastic syndromes and myeloproliferative neoplasms. Treatments for these cancers have improved in the previous few years, but most cases remain incurable.

In the previous few years, scientists discovered that these cancers develop over a long time through the buildup of DNA mutations in blood stem cells, the cells liable for normal blood formation. These mutations encourage these stem cells to grow faster than normal and, as more mutations accumulate, they’ll progress towards leukaemia. Thankfully, whilst mutations that promote cell growth are common, leukaemia develops only in a small minority of cases. Identifying these cases early on helps efforts to forestall the cancers from developing.

Dr Muxin Gu, first creator of the paper, said “We hope that MN-predict will help clinicians to discover people prone to myeloid cancers and use novel treatment to forestall the cancers from developing”.

Dr Pedro M. Quiros, joint senior creator of the study, said “Despite some recent advances of their treatment, these cancers remain lethal to many victims. We hope that our efforts will help advance prevention in favour of treating the full-blown disease”.

The research and development of MN-Predict was funded by Cancer Research UK and the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Society. Scientists from the Early Cancer Institute, University of Cambridge, University of Bristol, University of Oviedo (Spain), University of York, AstraZeneca (UK), German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ, Germany), St. James’s Hospital, Leeds and University of Pavia (Italy) also participated within the study.