
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990                   TAG: 9004190275
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BOSTON                                LENGTH: Short

DRUG FOUND EFFECTIVE AGAINST LEUKEMIA TYPE

An experimental cancer drug that works after a single round of treatment appears to be the most effective medicine yet for a rare form of leukemia, according to a study.

The drug - called 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine, or 2-CdA - has produced complete remissions in almost all hairy cell leukemia patients treated, and none has relapsed so far.

Researchers who developed and tested the medicine report that it "may well be the drug of choice in the treatment of hairy cell leukemia."

The drug also has been used successfully against chronic lymphocytic leukemia. It, like hairy cell leukemia, is a cancer of the white blood cells, which produce disease-fighting antibodies.

The latest study, published in today's New England Journal of Medicine, was directed by Dr. Lawrence D. Piro of the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, Calif. Scripps recently made an agreement with Johnson & Johnson's Ortho Pharmaceuticals to produce and distribute the drug once it's approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In the published work, doctors gave the drug to 12 patients as far back as four years ago. In 11, the disease disappeared and they remain disease free. - Associated Press

by CNB