THURSDAY, Dec. 26, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in routine care, overall survival improved from 1995 to 2017, according to a study recently published in Leukemia & Lymphoma.
Rudolf Weide, M.D., from the Praxis für Hämatologie und Onkologie in Koblenz, Germany, and colleagues analyzed 724 CLL outpatients (median age, 67 years) to examine survival in routine care from 1995 to 2017.
At diagnosis, 77, 13, and 5 percent were in Binet stage A, B, and C, respectively. The researchers found that during the evaluation period, 46 percent received treatment. Treatment included purine analogs, alkylating agents, chemoimmunotherapy with anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies, ibrutinib, venetoclax, and idelalisib in 38, 96, 63, 9, 1, and 3 percent, respectively. Overall survival was 13.9, 9.2, and 7.9 years, respectively, for Binet stage A, B, and C. Over time, there was an improvement in median overall survival from the start of therapy: 1995 to 2001, 5.8 years; 2002 to 2008, 6.1 years, and 2009 to 2017, median not reached.
"In our retrospective analysis we could show that 54 percent of the patients never needed any therapy and that in patients with active disease all new therapeutic options are used in routine care," the authors write.
The study was supported by research funding from TEVA GmbH.
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