A new method of killing just the clonal leukaemia cells has been developed. Thus in future a machine like a dialysis machine could reduce the white blood cell count very fast
This is done with a form of light therapy which has achieved high rates of malignant-cell destruction in studies involving leukemia cell lines.
Within 24 hours after exposure to cold-plasma energy, 90% of leukemia cells had been destroyed. Healthy cells were unaffected because they contained lower levels of reactive species as compared with the cancer cells, as reported in Biotechnology and Engineering.
"Cold plasma induces cancer cells to self-destruct, but it can leave healthy cells unharmed,"Magesh Thiyagarajan, PhD, of Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, said in a statement.
Conventional plasma energy heats gas molecules to form colored light rays, as seen in plasma televisions. Cold plasma can induce apoptosis or cell necrosis without the heat that can harm healthy cells.
Induction of apoptosis in human myeloid leukemia cells by remote exposure of resistive barrier cold plasma
What about the CLL cells not in the blood? the blood is only 5% of the story in CLL.
SLL people do not present in the peripheral blood until later in their disease pathway. I recall from reading Professor Hamblin's remarks on "sludging", it would appear CLL people can function with high numbers of lymphocytes in the blood ? mutated-unmuated.blogspot.c...
Interesting idea. When I first knew I'd got CLL had thoughts of making a dialysis type machine. You need to identify some difference in the bad cells in order to eliminate them. With the slow growing nature of CLL it sounds a plausible idea to use a dialysis type technique, even though the cost might be significant. Then I thought it spreads to your bone marrow, and hides in your lymph nodes so perhaps not such a bright idea. Perhaps you could combine it with some other treatment or therapy though, and perhaps useful in early stage patients, before it spreads around too much.
So really interesting to see the above. Please excuse my ignorance - I assume it relates to AML. Reading about AML that seems to originate from bad cells made by the bone marrow that don't mature into proper functioning blood cells. So may be there could be some possibility in CLL.
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