ARC-LITE
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Assessment of Response to Chemotherapy by Flt-3 Ligand Testing (ARC-LITE)
IRAS ID
334925
Contact name
Nuno Borges
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Newcastle Joint Research Office
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is the most common type of leukaemia. It is a high-risk disease and only 3 out of 10 patients survive. Treatment of AML requires chemotherapy, after which patients must wait several weeks for their blood counts to recover. A bone marrow test is then performed to find out if the treatment has been successful and they have achieved a remission. The anxiety of waiting for a bone marrow test and the test itself cause considerable mental and physical stress.
We are researching a blood test that can predict the response to treatment day by day. The test is for a growth factor known as Flt3 Ligand (FL) which is essential for normal blood cell development and for nearly all types of AML. When AML cells are present, FL is undetectable. If the AML has been cleared, FL rises to a very high level. Since it is a blood test, FL can be measured often to monitor the response to treatment.
Previous research has shown that the bone marrow test result could have been predicted by measuring FL. In this study we will perform FL measurement ‘prospectively’ to find out if FL can predict the result of the bone marrow test in advance. We will also find out the best way to measure the FL to get the most accurate prediction.
We hope that FL testing will prove useful in assessing the response of AML to chemotherapy. In the future we anticipate that FL testing will reduce the stress of treatment by removing anxiety and reducing the number of painful bone marrow tests that need to be performed.REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/NE/0203
Date of REC Opinion
28 Nov 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion