Scots girl diagnosed with blood cancer undergoes gentler leukaemia treatment

A Scots girl with an aggressive blood cancer is in recovery after undergoing a new and gentler treatment which slashes the need for intensive chemo.

Romyn Winters, from Dunbar, East Lothian, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) aged just two in 2018 after her parents noticed she was struggling to walk.

Her parents, Lisa and John, said: “We were on holiday in Yorkshire when we noticed Romyn’s leg was starting to look weak and she was crawling instead of walking, and then she started to get more unwell and stopped eating.”

In October 2018, tests confirmed Romyn had ALL and she was taken to NHS Lothian for treatment.

ALL is the most common childhood cancer, with around 400 new cases each year in the UK.

She underwent chemotherapy but the harsh side effects made her sick and she relapsed 18 months after treatment.

Her parents were offered a bone marrow transplant or blinatumomab with a lower dose of chemotherapy.

“Blinatumomab sounded scary as it was unknown, but we thought it would give us more options if she didn’t respond to the treatment, and hopefully she’d recover more quickly as it sounded less severe than the stronger chemotherapy.

“Dr Baird and her team supported us really well and kept us informed every step of the way. After a few expected side effects to begin with in hospital, Romyn was coping well and was able to have blinatumomab at home via her pump in a backpack.”

They said Romyn is now off the treatment and living life like other children her age.

“Within days, she was back playing on the trampoline with her brothers which was great to see.

“Since having her chemo port removed, she’s been able to take part in new childhood hobbies like her friends.

“We went on holiday to Tenerife and she learnt to swim in a week – we now can’t keep her away from a swimming pool.”

Her experience reflects findings from a new study at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, suggesting kinder treatments can improve outcomes for children whose leukaemia returns.

The new regime slashes the need for intensive chemotherapy and eliminates deaths linked to treatment in children with relapsed leukaemia.

Led by doctors at the hospital, the study found children and young people with relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) can be treated safely with significantly less intensive chemotherapy.

The UKALL Rel2020 study, published in the journal Leukemia, involved youngsters having less intensive chemotherapy before moving on to blinatumomab, a targeted immunotherapy that tells the immune system to attack leukaemia cells.

Some 188 children and young people aged one to 24 were included in the study, taken from 25 UK paediatric cancer centres between 2020 and 2024.

The new approach achieved remission rates of 92% while long‑term survival (82% after three years) was comparable to children on more intensive traditional treatment plans.

No patients died during the early phase of treatment, which experts said represents a big leap forward in care.

Although cure rates for newly diagnosed disease are high, the cancer coming back remains an issue.

Dr David O’Connor, consultant in paediatric haematology at Gosh, said of the study: “This approach marks a major step forward in developing kinder treatments for children with relapsed cancer.

“The early phase of treatment has traditionally carried significant risks.

“By using lower-intensity chemotherapy and moving rapidly to blinatumomab, we were able to eliminate treatment-related deaths without compromising effectiveness.”

According to Gosh, the clinical trial differs from others because it was delivered as routine NHS care, making the results more representative of real‑world patients.