A basic treatment for leukemia
For patients with acute myeloid leukemia, hematopoietic stem cell transplant offers a chance of curing the underlying cancer, in part because of the graft-versus-leukemia effect, or anticancer activity of transplanted T cells. Unfortunately, this does not always work, and engrafted T cells often fail to control the leukemia. By studying patients with acute myeloid leukemia who relapsed after hematopoietic stem cell transplant, Uhl et al. found that lactic acid produced by leukemic cells specifically interfered with T cell activity. The detrimental effects of lactic acid could be overcome with sodium bicarbonate, which improved T cell metabolic fitness in both mouse models and human patients.
