Vietnamese doctors team up with foreign experts to develop new leukemia treatment

Researchers from Vietnam and their international colleagues have developed a new treatment for chronic myelogenous leukemia, according to Nature Medicine.

The new treatment developed by doctors from the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Biotechnology and their counterparts from China, the United Kingdom and the United States was published in the pretigious medical journal two months ago.

Le Nguyen Xuan Truong from the Ho Chi Minh City center said that drug resistance and relapses are common among chronic myelogenous leukemia patients, even when they are treated with first-line medicine.

He said that researchers are trying to bring this new treatment back to Vietnam for further research and clinical trials.

The research was conducted over three years.

Nguyen Dang Quan, vice president of the HCMC center, said that scientists are also testing the method on other types of cancer.

Ten researchers from different institutes, universities and hospitals participated in the research. Leading the research was internationally acclaimed hematologist-oncologist Guido Marcucci from the U.S.