The rare complication that Asma Al-Assad suffers from

Asma al-Assad (49), the wife of the fugitive Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, has made headlines in recent years. The woman with the style that won coverage in the prestigious fashion magazine Vogue, was a significant part of a brutal regime, which was responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children during 13 years of civil war. After the regime lost its grip on power about a month ago, Assad and his wife received political asylum in Moscow.According to reports, these days she is dealing with acute leukemia, which was diagnosed already in May of last year, about five years after she recovered from breast cancer.

 

Prof. Ophir Wallach, director of the hemato-oncology inpatient unit in the hematology unit, Davidoff Center at Beilinson Hospital of the Klalit Group, and chairman of the Israeli Acute Leukemia Department, explains that acute myeloid leukemia, or abbreviated as AML, is a cancer that originates in the bone marrow, where systemic cells are formed The blood. “When a cancerous process occurs in the bone marrow, it affects the normal course of cell differentiation, causing the cells to divide in an uncontrolled manner. This is a disease that endangers the patient’s life mainly due to the fact that it causes a weakened immune system and a tendency to bleed, so it requires urgent treatment.” The professor points out that the disease is more common among older people who are 69 years old on average and slightly more common among men than among women.”

 

Previous exposure to treatments increases the chance of getting sick

Asma Al-Assad’s leukemia broke out, as mentioned, about five years after she recovered from breast cancer. Prof. Wallach explains that there are various risk factors for the development of the disease, one of which is previous exposure to chemotherapy or therapeutic radiation. “This is a complication that may appear within months to years from the moment of initial exposure to the chemotherapy treatments. According to the data available today, about 10% of all new acute leukemia patients developed the disease following treatment they underwent several years earlier for other cancerous tumors.”

The professor adds that in observational studies conducted among women who had breast cancer, it was found that compared to the general population, women who were treated for this cancer have a fourfold chance of developing leukemia in the future, although this is a rare complication.

 

 

 

Recently reported In the “Daily Telegraph” that according to various sources Asma is dying. It is also written that due to her condition, she is forced to stay in isolation. In other published reports it is claimed that she wishes to undergo treatments in London, but later It was written in the Sunday Times that she is prevented from returning to Britain, after her British passport expired. Apart from the bureaucratic matter, it seems that the authorities are not interested in her arrival either. The British Foreign Minister even spoke out on the issue last week and said that “she is not welcome here”. It was also written that Asma’s father, a senior cardiologist in London, left his position at the clinic where he worked and flew himself to take care of his home in Moscow.

Prof. Wallach explains that it is difficult to comment on Asma’s chances of recovery without additional data. He notes that the cure rates vary according to the specific type of the disease (there are several subgroups).

The treatments have been perfected

Prof. Wallach points out that in recent years there has been significant progress in the development of treatments and drugs for acute leukemia. According to him, until a few years ago, almost no new drugs for acute leukemia were approved, but in the last five years, the American Drug Administration, the FDA, approved more than 10 new drugs, some of which are also available in the Israeli drug basket, thanks to the revolution that took place in the field in the last two decades. “Today, thanks to research, we better understand the acquired genetic changes that lead to the development of leukemia, and these allow us to develop more appropriate and effective treatments based on the known chemotherapies, and in addition to develop biological preparations targeted at the genetic changes characteristic of the various leukemias. I predict that in the future Far from it, we will be able to provide patients with even better treatments than we have today.”

The professor explains that in general, the treatment given for acute leukemia is based on tree chemotherapy treatment, which “cleanses” the bone marrow of the damaged cells, and allows the normal cells to grow. He notes that in a significant number of cases, the patient will be offered a bone marrow transplant from a donor – a procedure in which the patient is implanted with new, healthy stem cells, instead of the damaged stem cells.

“Today, due to the new therapeutic technologies, there are also targeted biological drugs for the various mutations, according to the genetic characteristics of the disease,” says the professor. “Even for patients who cannot withstand tree chemotherapy treatment, there are currently therapeutic approaches that include low-intensity chemotherapy in combination with biological treatments. This development allows us to offer effective treatments even to patients who in the past were not candidates at all for the treatment of the disease due to their age, or due to the underlying diseases they suffered from.”

However, despite the technological progress, experts still do not have the technology to predict which of the cancer patients will later develop acute leukemia, following that exposure to the chemotherapy treatment. “A clinical tool that can help us decide on chemotherapy treatment for a patient, based on the potential chance of developing a rare complication in the future of acute leukemia, has not yet been developed. However, studies dealing with early genetic changes in leukemia may help in the near future to better predict this complication.”

 

 

 

Prof. Wallach emphasizes that although this is a significant complication, it is very rare. “The last thing I want is for people to avoid receiving treatment for a life-threatening disease because of a rare complication that may occur in the distant future. Although this is an important complication that needs to be taken into account, it is certainly not a reason to postpone essential treatment for a life-threatening disease.”