How a new potential treatment for rare leukemia helped this Wilmington mom
WILMINGTON, Del. (CBS) -- There's a potential new treatment for patients newly diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. A big part of the research came from the University of Pennsylvania.
This new research showed the new combination therapy, prevented relapse and improved overall survival.
Becky Yu and her daughters are back to making greeting cards
"I feel healed," Yu said.
After a scary bout with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), the 44 year old Wilmington mom is now cancer free.
"I'm feeling great, seriously," Yu said.
She says the ordeal started out of nowhere with a serious back ache.
"It hurts worse than giving birth," Yu said.
She was eventually diagnosed with ALL – that affects bone marrow.
It's usually treated with chemotherapy, but this kind of blood cancer usually comes back.
So, Yu decided to join a clinical trial at Penn, to test a new combination therapy
"I didn't hesitate," Yu said.
For patients like Yu, Penn researchers, as part of a national trial, added an immuno-therapy drug, called blinatumomab to a standard chemotherapy.
"This is the first new drug for newly diagnosed patients that has been shown to make a difference and improve survival," Dr. Selina Luger, of Penn Medicine, said. "This allows us to use the drug that is targeted to the cancer cells in a way that it will kill cancer cells without harming other cells."
Dr. Luger says the research showed after three and half years, 83% of patients who received the combination immunotherapy drug were still alive, compared to 65% who received traditional chemotherapy.
"I didn't have any side effects," Yu said.
Dr. Luger says it's a new more user friendly chemo combination.
"I've been doing this for 30 years and I think this is one of the major advances I've seen," Dr. Luger said.
The research on this new combination immuno-therapy was just presented, and researchers are hoping it will lead to an approval from the FDA.