Scientists at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and the University of Melbourne in Australia have found a potential solution to the problem of a common kind of childhood leukemia – they have discovered that a particular cell, called ‘T-cell’ is apparently the basic cause of the cancer in the children, and even makes radiotherapy somewhat ineffective.

The researchers, led by Dr Matthew McCormack and Dr David Curtis, hit upon the role of the stem-like ‘T-cells’ in childhood leukemia while they were observing mice prone to developing the cancer.

The research team discovered that though with irradiation treatment in animal models, more than 99 percent of the T-cells in the thymus were destroyed; these cells still persisted and recovered speedily; thereby suggesting that they are also responsible for the resurgence of the cancer after treatment.

Hence, especially noting that the post-treatment relapse of leukemia can be successfully stopped by attacking the ‘T-cell,’ the researchers said that additional studies are needed to work out better health care of leukemia sufferers would need to be worked upon after the resurgence chances are reduced.

Reporting the findings of the ‘Cell Study’ in the online edition of the prestigious international journal Science, Dr Curtis said: “The identification of these cells provides an important target for the development and testing of new treatments for patients with T cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.”