Scottish Scientists discover that Hydroxychloroquine combats Leukemia

Earlier on Monday, the Daily Record reported that scientists in Scotland have discovered that chronic myeloid leukemia cells can be destroyed with the drug hydroxychloroquine, which could also prove beneficial in combating other cancers, including breast, lung, and bowel cancers.

Study lead, Arunima Mukhopadhyay said, “We can see a cure on the horizon and we are trying to get there. The fact we are using an anti-malarial drug means we do not have to make a new drug. There are several trials ongoing with patients who are suffering from other forms of blood cancer, solid tumors of the prostate and in cancers of the bowel, kidney, lungs, breast, and skin.”

Comparable to the manner in which Hydroxychloroquine combats Malaria, it also acts on leukemia cells by altering the environment within the blood cells required for survival.

Mukhopadhyay added that although “with current treatments for CML, a tiny population of stem cells remains in the bone marrow cannot be killed,” hydroxychloroquine has been found to destroy the left over leukemia cells.
She remarked, “This means that patients have to continue on drugs for the rest of their lives and quite often, if you take them off the drugs, they will get a relapse.”