{"entity":{"id":"emil-freireich","kind":"person","name":"Emil J Freireich","aka":[],"tldr":"At the NCI in the early 1960s he and Emil Frei gave children four drugs at once, VAMP, against fierce opposition, and turned a leukaemia almost no child survived into a curable one. He also worked out platelet transfusion.","summary":"Emil J Freireich (1927-2021) joined the National Cancer Institute in 1955 and, with Emil Frei and James Holland, took on childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when single drugs produced only brief remissions. He established that bleeding deaths were caused by low platelets and that fresh platelet transfusions prevented them, making intensive chemotherapy survivable. In 1961-62 he and Frei devised VAMP, giving vincristine, amethopterin (methotrexate), 6-mercaptopurine and prednisone together in full doses, a regimen colleagues thought reckless; it produced long remissions and the first cures. He moved to MD Anderson in 1965, where he built the Department of Developmental Therapeutics and trained a generation of leukaemia physicians, and he continued to see patients into his nineties.","asOf":"2026-09-09","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_J._Freireich","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_J._Freireich"},{"label":"MD Anderson","url":"https://www.mdanderson.org/"}],"tags":["hero","pioneer"],"related":[],"cancers":["all-leukemia","aml"],"sections":["chemotherapy"],"technologies":["cytotoxic-chemotherapy","transfusion-support"],"targets":[],"drugs":["vincristine","methotrexate"],"companies":[],"institutions":["nci","md-anderson"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":["emil-frei","donald-pinkel"],"bottlenecks":["b-combination-space","b-toxicity-qol"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Pioneer of combination chemotherapy and the cure of childhood leukaemia","specialisms":["Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia","Combination chemotherapy","Supportive care"],"profiles":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_J._Freireich"},{"label":"MD Anderson","url":"https://www.mdanderson.org/"}],"papers":[{"title":"Fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab treatment achieves long-term disease-free survival in IGHV-mutated chronic lymphocytic leukemia","journal":"Blood","year":2016,"doi":"10.1182/blood-2015-09-667675"},{"title":"The Leukemias: A Half-Century of Discovery","journal":"Journal of Clinical Oncology","year":2014,"doi":"10.1200/jco.2014.57.1034"},{"title":"Toward the potential cure of leukemias in the next decade","journal":"Cancer","year":2018,"doi":"10.1002/cncr.31669"}]},"route":"/people/emil-freireich/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"all-leukemia","kind":"cancer","name":"Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia","route":"/cancers/all-leukemia/"},{"id":"aml","kind":"cancer","name":"Acute myeloid leukaemia","route":"/cancers/aml/"}],"section":[{"id":"chemotherapy","kind":"section","name":"Chemotherapy","route":"/fronts/chemotherapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"cytotoxic-chemotherapy","kind":"technology","name":"Cytotoxic chemotherapy","route":"/technologies/cytotoxic-chemotherapy/"},{"id":"transfusion-support","kind":"technology","name":"Transfusion support and anaemia management","route":"/technologies/transfusion-support/"}],"drug":[{"id":"methotrexate","kind":"drug","name":"Methotrexate","route":"/drugs/methotrexate/"},{"id":"vincristine","kind":"drug","name":"Vincristine","route":"/drugs/vincristine/"}],"institution":[{"id":"md-anderson","kind":"institution","name":"MD Anderson Cancer Center","route":"/institutions/md-anderson/"},{"id":"nci","kind":"institution","name":"National Cancer Institute (NIH)","route":"/institutions/nci/"}],"person":[{"id":"donald-pinkel","kind":"person","name":"Donald Pinkel","route":"/people/donald-pinkel/"},{"id":"emil-frei","kind":"person","name":"Emil \"Tom\" Frei III","route":"/people/emil-frei/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-combination-space","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Too many combinations to test","route":"/bottlenecks/b-combination-space/"},{"id":"b-toxicity-qol","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued","route":"/bottlenecks/b-toxicity-qol/"}]}}