An Attempt of Low Phenylalanine Diet Therapy for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (Preliminary Report)

Abstract

The phenylalanine value in plasma has been found to he elevated in all types of acute and chronic human leukemia. Furhermore, there are many data which suggest the disturbances of phenylalanine hydroxylase system in the patient with malignant tumor, especially leukemia. In our experiments, phenylalanine deficient diet suppressed the growth of transplanted tumor and also the leukopoesis in bone marrow. From these results, it was supposed that low phenylalanine diet may be effective for chronic myelogenous leukemia.6 patients with leukemia, that is 5 chronic myelogenous leukemia and one acute lymphatic leukemia, were subjected for the low phenylalanine diet therapy. It was proved that single application of this diet therapy was not effective. The ordinal chemotherapy, therefore, was applied in addition to this diet therapy. The clinical responce for medical treatment was remarkahlly improved on low phenylalanine diet than on ordinal diet. In addition to this, it was also proved that low phenylalanine and low tyrosine diet was more effective than low phenylalanine diet. This diet therapy was not effective for acute lymphatic leukemia. From these clinical observations, it may conclude that the low phenylalanine diet, especially low phenylalanine and low tyrosine diet, is very useful for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia.