Leukemia pill cuts death risks by 36% for 21,000 people with a hard-to-treat ...

A newly FDA-approved leukemia drug lowers death risks by more than a third for patients whose cancers came back or were never fully cured, a new study reveals.

Over 21,000 Americans are diagnosed with a form of the cancer called acute myeloid leukemia (AML) annually, and about half of them have relapses of the disease.

Their best chance at a cure is a bone marrow transplant, but it only cures between 25 and 50 percent of patients - if they even survive long enough to receive the live-saving stem cells.

But in November 2018, the Food and Drug Administration approved targeted drug called gilteritinib to treat these patients, and a new University of Pennsylvania study found that it gives them better odds at surviving longer.

A new drug for recurrent acute myeloid leukemia (AML, pictured), called gilteritinib, gives patients a 36 percent lower risk of dying from the hard-to-treat cancer, a new study found

A new drug for recurrent acute myeloid leukemia (AML, pictured), called gilteritinib, gives patients a 36 percent lower risk of dying from the hard-to-treat cancer, a new study found   

'We're very excited about the survivals we've seen,' lead study author Dr Alexander Perl, a professor of oncology and hematology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine told Daily Mail Online.

He and his research team treated patients with a certain genetic mutation that makes their AML more likely to recur and harder to treat.

The three-year survival rate for people who have this kind of leukemia - FLT3-ITD positive AML - is just 44 percent.

A treatment specific to this subset of AML, approved in 2017, has helped to keep the cancer in check, but hasn't proven to be

read more from dailymail.....

NEXT Health service initiative offers patients a chance to see a GP on the same day ... trends now