Evaluating Safety Concerns in Patients With Hairy Cell Leukemia
Kerry Rogers, MD, discusses an important unmet need in patients with hairy cell leukemia.
Kerry Rogers, MD, assistant professor at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses an important unmet need in patients with hairy cell leukemia. She says it is important to realize, though, that many of these patients receive a single dose of pentostatin or cladribine or a single course and are alive without leukemia recurrence 8 to 10 years later.
For these patients who receive either pentostatin or cladribine, complications can still happen, although hairy cell leukemia, in most cases, will not shorten a patient’s natural life span. One side effect patients experience more frequently is infection, which can be severe or life-threatening. Patients can also develop infection after treatment, especially if they receive treatment with purine nucleoside analogs.
Rogers says that it is important now to find better therapies for patients with hairy cell leukemia that provider better supportive care and management surrounding infection.
