With over 12,000 patients dying from blood cancers every year, lymphoma and leukemia-related deaths are shaping up to be an ever fiercer killer than breast cancer. As such, researchers are now seeking out new and otherwise unheard of ways to battle the disease – including clinical trials that in the past may have been considered too radical to utilize.
Due in large part to the rareness involved with blood cancers, finding enough patients to conduct studies on is far more difficult than it is for other forms of cancer. Now, however, 13 clinical trial centers across the United Kingdom are attempting to do their part to help wage war on the vicious disease -- all the while speeding up the never-ending process of drug treatment development.
According to numerous reports, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Research charity has invested approximately £2.3 million in the aforementioned network, with hopes that trials will be completed within two years of the funding.
Professor Charlie Craddock, the charity’s clinical trials advisor, had this to say:
"Every doctor will tell you that they are routinely turning down promising new drugs because they don't have the resources to conduct early stage clinical trials.
"We have a moral case for getting new drugs out there as soon as possible - if you have a relative with a blood cancer, you don't want life-saving treatment available in 10 years, you want it now."
