Beckman Coulter Life Sciences Expands Leukemia and Lymphoma Testing in Africa

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Key Highlights:

• $2.5 Million Grant to Expand Testing in Kenya

• Significant Improvement in Pediatric Cancer Survival

• Scaling Up Testing and Research Efforts

A new $2.5 million over five years was granted to the Indiana University School of Medicine from Beckman Coulter Life Sciences in collaboration, with this set to be allocated to enhance testing for leukemia and lymphoma within Western Kenya.

The project, under the direction of Dr. Terry Vik of the Indiana University School of Medicine, greatly benefits from collaboration with the critical AMPATH Reference Laboratory, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, the University of Missouri, and the Burkitt’s Lymphoma Fund for Africa in access towards the diagnostics that are most crucial in minimizing morbidity brought about by blood cancers in pediatrics.

Since 2018, the team has been working on adapting flow cytometry techniques for early diagnosis in pediatric hematologic malignancies. That ranges from fine-tuning sample workflow procedures and training health providers to diagnose timely and correctly. It helped reduce the rate of blood cancers among children through the capabilities of Burkitt’s Lymphoma Fund for Africa. It may be still early enough for detection such that most of the pediatric hematologic malignancies are highly curable if detected in time. With increased testing and education, survival for the leukemia and lymphoma patient populations has increased significantly in the region by up to 50 percent since the inception of the partnership but diagnosis services are still in demand, showing a need for more investments and resources.

“When we realized how poor Africa was in all the required means to diagnose and treat these diseases, we had to do something,” said Tony Boova, Principal Medical and Scientific Affairs at Beckman Coulter Life Sciences. “Through this partnership, we have facilitated automated flow cytometry testing and, after six years, are proud to assist in saving lives and extending tests to other African countries.”

According to Dr. Terry Vik, the survival rates are good and treatment, but with a correct diagnosis, children have a chance of no survival. According to Dr. Vik, over the last six years, awareness on childhood cancer has gone up highly in Kenya. The diagnoses have increased yearly and this has tripled, with the survival improved through curative therapy for common pediatric cancers.

The prize will translate to more personnel, reagents, and testing capacity. Conversely, it will translate to shorter turnaround times, more attentive care of patients, and an enormously enhanced health care workforce in Western Kenya. Part of the money to be dispensed will go toward funding clinical studies, some that will contrast early-screening approaches-mostly often this time bone marrow aspirates versus peripheral blood samples are less invasive. This study, with a RO1 NIH Grant, recruits 500 patients and does 3,000 flow cytometry assays.

The National Cancer Institute falls under the United States Department of Health and Human Services and falls under the umbrella of the National Institutes of Health.