A new step in research on childhood leukemia has taken a genetic mutation that appears to be responsible for the disease in question., the discovery represents a great achievement that can allow in the near future to defeat the disease and that this ceases to be a cause for which a child dies. The discovery has been made by a group of researchers belonging to the University of Oxford during the study of two twins from the United Kingdom, one of them suffering from leukemia.
The researchers were able to verify that during pregnancy there was a genetic mutation in the fetuses, responsible for transforming some cells that are in the bone marrow into preleukemic cells (it must be said that this term has been abandoned because not all of them end up developing leukemia), that is, cells that can end up becoming malignant and therefore develop the disease. The second step would be a new mutation of these cells for leukemia to develop and this step appears in the first years of life, well, that is the mutation that scientists have managed to identify. As we always say, if exactly the origin of a disease is known, an effective treatment against it can be designed, this discovery marks the beginning of the end of leukemia.
New studies will now be necessary to be able to understand exactly the functioning of these cells that are present in 1% of the child population. It will also be necessary to know what is the mechanism that propitiates the mutation and why these types of cells support chemotherapy, being responsible for the disease appearing again after the treatment of the patient.
We hope that research can respond to these questions soon, the research data has been published in the prestigious electronic scientific journal Science.
