Over 70 countries and regions are now introducing a therapy discovered in China to treat leukaemia.

The therapy covers the cancer cell with arsenic trioxide to prevent the composition of its DNA. Two kinds of traditional Chinese medicine are used to combine with chemotherapy to prevent the revival of the cells.

Ma Jun, head of the Harbin Institute of Hematology and Oncology, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, said that the therapy has saved over 700 patients in China and abroad and has a 68 per cent success rate.

The successive therapy has been introduced to the US, France, Japan, Germany, Brazil, India, Cuba and dozens of other countries and regions. The US magazine "Science" introduced the therapy as early as in 1996.

"BLOOD", the authoritative magazine of the US in pharmaceuticals and medicine. reported the treatment in an April issue of 1999 stating that the therapy was the most effective in treating leukaemia and had the lowest side effects.

The New York Slong Cancer Center introduced the method to cure 12 patients with the leukaemia last year.

There is now another treatment available to combat the disease apart from chemotherapy and marrow transplants.