I was asked this question by someone in a support group. Have any of us seen any research that shows that younger CLL patients typically have a more aggressive version of CLL than their older CLL counterparts? In other words, because the younger CLLers manifested their disease so early do the stats indicate that comparitively they will live shorter lives and perhaps require more aggressive and more frequent treatments? Or is there no tie in between the age that you are diagnosed and the eventual long term outcome of your disease, compared to older patient's typical outcomes and needs for treatments? Thank you.
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jettyguy1
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Here is an MDAnderson study... it is in the age of chemoimmunotherapy, mind you...nothing on the newer treatments yet...
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Younger patients (defined as patients younger than 50 –55 years of age) represent a small group of newly diagnosed patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, accounting only for 10% to 20% of newly diagnosed cases.
However, once these patients become symptomatic and require treatment, their life expectancy is significantly reduced.
Therapeutic approaches for younger patients should be directed at improving survival by achieving a complete remission and, where possible, eradicating minimal residual disease.
Chemoimmunotherapy combinations carry the highest response rates and are commonly offered to younger patients.
Additional strategies that should be considered for younger patients include early referral for stem-cell transplantation and clinical trials of consolidation therapy to eliminate minimal residual disease.
Thanks very much for this information. Very helpful. Could we postulate that with the newer front line novel agents now available, that perhaps these older studies that are more based on chemo like approaches, don't actually tell the complete story and that once these other approaches are accurately measured, that younger CLLers will gain in both longevity of remissions and overall survival time?
While Dr Google is not good Dr Youtube for what ever reason has the presentation of the findings of pretty much every large CLL study
From what i have seen the results of your FISH test have become a very good predictor of how well you well you will respond to treatment and how long it will last regardless of your age unless you are really not healthy
The people with the most favorable Fish results who got FCR are approaching 15 years of remission and they keep working to find things that will provide the same good result for those of us with less favorable FISH results
I am 46, I am choosing to believe what is brought out in some of these videos below.
Dr. Furman in this video at one point says with today's novel therapies that even younger patients can expect almost normal life expectancies. (around 6:45 of clip below)
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