l+l@i'
)Emmtr
trtffi
Lin
Glu
ARSENIC:CONVERTING A
POISONTO MEDICINE
FOR
BLOOD CANCER
Leukemia or cancer
of
the white
blood
cells,
may be acute or
chronic and
may also be "myeloid" or "lymphocytic",
according to the specitic white blood
cells
that
have become cancerous. Ar-
senic
in large
doses
is
definitely poison-
ous but in
much
smaller doses,
has
been used
medicinally
for centuries
in
the
Eastern and
Western part
of the
world. For
a
myeloid leukemia
in
adults
-
"acute promylocytic leukemia" (APL),
conventional therapy
is
alltrans
retinoic
acid and
anthracycline
chemotherapy.
ln
recent years, pure arsenic
com-
pounds like "arsenic trioxide"
had
achieved (initially in China) very
high
cure rates even in relapsed or
refrac-
tory APL.
Note
well that arsenic triox-
ide
is
not the
f
irst-line
therapy;
moreover,
as the
dose
of
the
compound
is
also critical and as the indication
is
only
for
a specific relapsed or refrac-
tory leukemia, all such treatments must
always be directed by
specialist
doctors.
Moreover,
as adverse
etfects
of arsenic also
require
very
specific
management, self-medication
must
never
be
considered
at
all.
Nevertheless, arsenic trioxide
is
able to
induce partial differentiation
of
cells and
triggers a
programmed
cell death.
lt
also
remarkable
as it constitutes
an
example
of
a
therapy directly targeted
to
a
specific
genetic lesion in
a
human
cancer.
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