A CONTRACEPTIVE pill taken in combination with a cholesterol-lowering drug has been used to treat leukaemia patients who are too frail for chemotherapy, scientists revealed yesterday.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham said the first UK clinical trials indicated that the combination could be a safer and more effective treatment than chemotherapy for some sufferers.

Scientists treated 20 acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patients with cholesterol-lowering Bezafibrate and the female contraceptive drug Medroxy progesterone Acetate and found that patients experienced none of the side effects associated with chemotherapy.

The study, which will be published online in the British Journal of Haematology today, also showed that survival was improved by several months.

The patients, who all had a poor prognosis and were expected to live for an average of two months without treatment, survived for an average of five months when treated with the two drugs.

The experts established that the drugs work together to destroy AML cells by blocking a key enzyme.