Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is most commonly found in New Zealand adults. It is characterized by the rapid growth of white blood cells in the body. A team of scientists at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, Wellington, and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, concluded that a proper selection of an appropriate treatment for a cancer patient may help in providing beneficial results.

Malaghan Institute senior cancer Researcher Prof Mike Berridge said that by finding a specific treatment to which AML patients will respond positively will help in minimizing the guesswork.

AML is treated by either using chemotherapy or bone marrow transplantation. Different people have different effects of the treatment operated on them. For many people certain treatment proves beneficial, whereas the same treatment shows no sign of improvement in other patients.

"Cancer cells grow and divide frequently and therefore require a lot of energy", said Prof. Berridge. "Normally this energy comes from specialised energy factories within the cell called mitochondria; however AML cells have found other ways of meeting their energy needs".

According to Dr. Herst, cancer cells of patients who did not depend on their mitochondria for their production of energy ended up being more beneficial for the patients.