An Italian scoring system worked better than 2 other risk models for predicting which patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients who were administered ibrutinib would later develop potentially life-threatening heart rhythms.
The finding, based on a retrospective study of 298 patients with CLL, may help clinicians distinguish between normal risk of atrial fibrillation (AFib) due to aging and the additive risk posed by this widely used drug.
“The important thing is that doctors already have this information in patients’ medical records, so it doesn’t require further testing to plug in numbers and come up with a score,” said William Archibald, MD, the study’s principal investigator and a resident internist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Those scoring highest on the Italian model had an almost 50% risk of later developing AFib, he said, which may allow doctors to start planning ahead — choosing a different therapy to manage these chronic blood cancers or even stopping ibrutinib altogether.
The mechanism is poorly understood by which ibrutinib causes these erratic heart rhythms that damage the heart, or other heart problems, such as hypertension, he and others said. A more pressing concern, they suggested, is the excessive bleeding that can occur once AFib emerges.
Those considered at highest risk for these heart events might even be encouraged to wear an Apple Watch or some other monitoring device to track AFib, he said. “I hadn’t thought of it before, but it’s a great idea”
More here: cancertherapyadvisor.com/ho...
Jackie
), it sounds as though Ibrutinib has been good for you Tim.
COVID risk to CLL patients with the reopening of schools
Clinical trial results & reviews of new treatments for CLL written in easy to understand terms 
