NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Nearly one-third of leukemia patients do not respond to chemotherapy, but this is not typically discovered until they have already endured a week-long course of chemotherapy and waited even longer to see if the chemotherapy worked.
A new study shows that positron emission tomography, known as PET scans, may tell doctors how well a leukemia patient is responding after just one day of chemotherapy.
“This has very profound implications for patients,” Dr. Matt Vanderhoek told Reuters Health. “Instead of making the patient go through a week of chemotherapy only to find out after the fact that their chemotherapy wasn’t successful, therapy could be modified and changed on the fly.”
The University of Wisconsin researcher will present the research Thursday at the 50th annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, underway in Houston, Texas.