A number of abstracts are now available from the EHA meeting last week. One of the papers that caught my eye was an article on Richter's Transformation. The conclusions of the study I quote below, but I am puzzled that they thought it would be instructive to have a graph of Overall Survival of RT patients vs. non-RT patients. I guess that the graph (see above) is pretty depressing for all of us even if you don't get RT, but hopefully all of us are subject to a new set of statistics.
Here's the paper:
RICHTER'S TRANSFORMATION IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC LYMPHOCYTIC LEUKEMIA (CLL): ANALYSIS OF BIOLOGICAL AND CLINICAL RISK FACTORS AND OUTCOMES
Edwin Gershom* 1, Steven Huang2, Mavis Suhua Ye1, Miriam Ahmed1, Tanya L. Gillan3, Alina S. Gerrie4, Heather A. Leitch5, Cynthia L. Toze4, Khaled M. Ramadan5
1Division of Hematology, St Paul's Hospital, 2Leukemia/BMT Program of BC, Vancouver General Hospital, 3Cytogenetics Laboratory, Vancouver General Hospital and The University of British Columbia, 4Leukemia/BMT Program of BC, Vancouver General Hospital and The University of British Columbia, 5St Paul's Hospital and The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
and here's the conclusions:
Summary/Conclusion: This study of 59 RT pts is the largest to date analyzing biological and clinical risk factors for outcomes. RT significantly shortened OS compared to CLL control grp. Pts with LDH>1.5ULN, advanced Rai stage, CD38+ and >1 FISH abnormalities at diagnosis should be closely monitored for RT. Early treatment of CLL pts correlating to high risk of RT warrants further investigation. Expanding this study provincially and nationwide, along with a more comprehensive analysis of clinical and biological parameters and their combinations would help in better predicting RT among CLL pts leading to improved patient care.