In-vivo Studies of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia Kinetics V.I
Research type
Research Study
Full title
In-vivo studies of tumour kinetics in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL)
IRAS ID
121346
Contact name
Stephen Devereux
Contact email
Research summary
Chronic Lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL)is the commonest leukaemia in the Western World and is a disease of the elderly. Symptoms of the disease include frequent infections, enlarged lymph nodes, enlarged liver and spleen and weight-loss and night sweats. CLL may reduce the ability of the bone marrow to make normal blood cells leading to anaemia, bleeding/bruising and infections.
Historically, CLL was thought to arise as a result of impaired ’cell-death’ but recent evidence suggests that it is characterised by high rates of cell division.
We intend to measure the rates of CLL proliferation in 10 patients with early stage CLL that does not require treatment. We will measure the proliferation rates at two time points in each patient to establish whether there is any spontaneous variation in proliferation. This is an exploratory study as there is currently no data in the literature regarding spontaneous intra-patient variation in proliferation rates. This information will prove invaluable to future studies that will investigate the effect of drugs on proliferation rates. It is known that CLL cells divide in the lymph nodes but it is not known how rapidly they are released from the nodes to the blood. We will therefore also investigate release rates and examine the characteristics of cells released over time in 10 patients. Lastly, proliferation rates will be correlated with telomere-length which is indicative of the replicative history of the tumour cell.REC name
London - Chelsea Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/0434
Date of REC Opinion
5 Jun 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion