INNOVATION NOTEBOOK

Leukemia treatment discovery

Powering up fat cells in bone marrow could help acute myeloid leukemia patients, reveals a McMaster University study.

Boosting the fat cells with a drug commonly used to moderate diabetes suppressed cancerous leukemia cells, found researchers at the McMaster Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute.

A surprise discovery was that it also induced the regeneration of healthy blood cells, which is critical for patients but often overlooked as conventional treatments focus on killing the leukemia cells alone.

The research, published Oct. 16 in the journal Nature Cell Biology, was conducted over three and a half years with bone marrow samples from large patient cohorts at Hamilton Health Sciences, the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and Western University.

The study was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute and the Marta and Owen Boris Foundation.

Preventing cardiovascular events

Anticoagulant Rivaroxaban significantly lowers the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events when combined with Aspirin, concludes a Hamilton-led study.

The research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine Oct. 5, also found a significantly increased risk of major bleeding with the combination therapy.

The anticoagulant, also known as Xarelto, was not found to lower the risk of cardiovascular events on its own. Aspirin alone was also not as effective as the combination therapy in the COMPASS study funded by the drug maker Bayer.

Preemies more affected by stress

Extremely low birth weight babies are affected by major stresses in childhood and adolescence more than their peers born at term found McMaster University research.

As a result, bullying and family problems could impact mental illness in adults born extremely premature reveals the study published Oct. 3 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

The study also suggests early mental health support for survivors and their parents could prove beneficial.

The researchers used the McMaster Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) Cohort, which includes 40 years worth of data on 179 preemies and 145 babies born at term between 1977 and 1982.

It builds on a previous study that identified an increased risk of mental illness in adulthood in extremely low birth weight survivors.