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Good news with green tea extract in leukemia trials

Updated: 2009-05-27 21:21:50 CST Category: Leukemia and WBC disorders

An extract made from an active ingredient in green tea seems to be well tolerated by leukemia patients and shows some promise in reducing lymphocyte counts, reported researchers from the Mayo Clinic.

"We found not only that patients tolerated the green tea extract at very high doses, but that many of them saw regression to some degree of their chronic lymphocytic leukemia," said Dr Tait Shanafelt, a Mayo Clinic hematologist and lead author of the study. "The majority of individuals who entered the study with enlarged lymph nodes saw a 50 percent or greater decline in their lymph node size."

The study involved patients with the most common subtype of leukemia in the U.S., chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL. Leukemia blood tests enable early diagnosis of this disease, but currently there is no cure and about half the patients with in the early stages of the disease have an aggressive form of CLL that leads to premature death.

The researchers hope the extract, called epigallocatechin gallate, can stabilize the disease or even improve the effectiveness of other treatments. The researchers will now treat a series of patients with the largest dose to see if the treatment results hold up.

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