How are clinical trials going to help beat blood cancer in a generation?

Clinical trials are so much more than researchers conducting experiments in the lab, they involve real people, putting people with blood cancer at the centre of research. They are essential for understanding blood cancer prevention, detecting diseases earlier and crucially developing new treatments.

While recent advances in treatments for people with leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma have already led to significant improvements in the range of drugs people can access, much more research is needed to address the challenges that blood cancer still presents.

A clinical trial is a research study that tests new treatments to see if they are safe and effective. Doctors and scientists recruit patients to test new drugs, therapies, medical devices or other interventions to find out if it improves outcomes for people with a certain condition, like a blood cancer.

Before any new treatment becomes available to everyone, it must go through clinical trials to make sure it works better than what’s already being used and that it doesn’t cause harmful side effects.

Trials can also test different ways of giving a treatment to see if one method works better than another.

Our charity has a proud history of funding clinical trials. In 2011 we set up a Trials Accelerator Programme. Through these more than 1,000 people with blood cancer have been treated with over 150 new drugs or drug combinations, many of which have been life-changing.

In the years that followed, the pandemic and other factors meant we were unable to commit to funding research at this scale. Now, thanks to your support, as charity we're back in the position to commit to funding research that can change the future of blood cancer treatment.

This is why this year we have launched the transformational research awards, where we’ve made one of our biggest research investments to date.

We recently announced that we have invested over £4.9million to fund five incredibly ambitious and innovative projects aimed at finding new and improved treatments for blood cancer.

This work includes a clinical trial researching a new and better way to treat acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL), a rare type of blood cancer.

The project which is being led by Professor Steven Knapper at Cardiff University patients taking a new form of arsenic treatment which can be taken at home instead of patients travelling to hospital to receive treatment.

This new ‘home treatment’ could reduce the burden on people and their families, allowing them to lead a more normal life, offering a much better way for managing and treating the disease.

Thanks to our dedicated supporters, it’s the first time in several years that as a charity that represents the blood cancer community, we have been able to fund clinical research at this scale.

But we know that even that’s not enough. As a charity we have the ambition to commit funding more clinical research. As outlined in our strategy, we are committed to increasing our investment in research, reaching £15 million by 2027/28.

Not only are we investing in research, but we are supporting patients on the ground through our clinical trials support service. Launched in 2020 it was the first clinical trial support service in the UK.

This is vital as the Blood Cancer Action Plan showed that recruitment to blood cancer trials has fallen dramatically and the post-pandemic recovery has been challenged by delays and a chronically understaffed workforce.

Our dedicated haematology nurses support people with blood cancer in exploring clinical trial options, and wherever possible support them in accessing possible trials.

Not only this but the team provide ongoing support throughout the trial journey.

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