December 23, 2005 – From All Headline News (www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7001608926) by Danielle George - All Headline News Staff Reporter; for the reference & abstract of the article appearing in Leukemia Research, see PubMed.

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Green tea extract may help patients with a form of leukemia, according to a team from the Mayo Clinic.

The tea seems to make a difference in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

CLL is a blood and bone marrow cancer which affects white blood cells and is the most common type of leukemia.

Mayo researchers decided to try green tea after a test tube study in 2004 showed it killed leukemia cells.

Within a few months after taking the tea, doctors realized that three out of four patients were showing signs of the cancer regressing.

The fourth patient also showed a slight improvement, but it was not judged to be clinically relevant.

Report author Tait Shanafelt says in a BBC report, "Green tea has long been thought to have cancer-prevention capabilities. It is exciting that research is now demonstrating this agent may provide new hope for CLL patients.

"The experience of these individuals provides some suggestion that our previously published laboratory findings may actually translate into clinical effects for patients with this disease."

Ken Campbell, clinical information officer at the Leukemia Research Fund, is cautious about the results and says, "The findings are interesting, but we cannot say yet this is a new treatment for cancer.

"We need to carry out a large scale, controlled trial to see if the findings hold true."