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Emil Freireich with his wife Haroldine in 2009
Photo: Patrick McMullan / Getty Images
The American cancer research pioneer Emil Freireich is dead. As the TV broadcaster ABC and the newspaper "Houston Chronicle" report, Freireich died last Monday at the age of 93.
ABC named Covid-19 as the cause of death.
The physician, who practiced for decades at the Cancer Center of the University of Texas in Houston, is considered a co-founder of modern cancer research.
In 1955, Freireich came to the leukemia ward of the National Cancer Institute in the US state of Maryland.
Leukemia, Freireich said in 2015, was a death sentence at the time.
The work of the doctor in the following decades revolutionized the therapies for children with leukemia, which increased their chances of survival.
Freireich's research helped to stop bleeding in children suffering from leukemia, which had previously led to the death of many young patients.
In the 1950s, he and his research team introduced combination chemotherapy in children with leukemia.
According to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), Freireich's discoveries are still part of everyday clinical practice.
The survival rate in children with leukemia is now over 90 percent, according to the AACR.
Freireich's work saved the lives of entire generations of children, said AACR chairwoman Margaret Foti.
"His research changed our view of childhood leukemia and made it a disease that can be cured."
The personal story of the Chicago-born Freireich may also have contributed to his career path: According to the Houston Chronicle, he lost a girlfriend at a young age due to leukemia.
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