TREATMENT OF HAIRY CELL LEUKEMIA

Hairy cell leukemia is a highly treatable disease.  Since it is easily controlled, the secret to prolonged survival is "take the treatment and watch your ‘counts’.

Although there are several treatment options, the current treatment of choice is 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine (2Cda).  This drug is administered in a 7 day continuous infusion or a 5 day subcutaneous injection.  The side effects are minimal (no hair loss, nausea etc.). The treatment (2Cda) can however cause a neutropenic fever.  The patient may be given Neupogen to help the white counts return to an acceptable level.

The 2Cda response rate is 85% to 95%.  Some patients do relapse (2 to 10 years) and the second treatment also has an excellent response rate.  The good news is there are some drugs (Rituxin) in "clinical study" using a monoclonal antibodies, angiogenesis inhibitors approach.

Probably the most exciting new development is BL22, (Click to read the recent results).  BL22 is different from 2-CdA in that it does not destroy all of the white cells.  Rather it targets only the HCL.  It is now being used on a trial basis for those who have failed to achieve remission with standard chemotherapies.  However the early results appear to be quite promising.