"This study shows that even more patients will benefit if we give (arsenic) earlier in the course of treatment," said Dr. Bayard Powell, haematology professor at Wake Forest medical centre in North Carolina, and the lead author of the research delivered at the meeting of the American Society of Oncology (ASCO) which brought together 25,000 experts in Chigago.

"The difference in survival rates and relapse rates are great enough to justify including arsenic trioxide in standard first-line treatment" of acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL) a rare form of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), Powell argued.