Cll and ITP

[Laurag78]

Has anyone through having CLL contracted the blood disorder itp, this is an autoimmune disorder which attacks the platelets, my mum has this...All drugs including revolade have not increased her platelet count which is at 1...She starts ibrutinib next week, does how this can help the blood disorder and get the platelets up?!

[AussieNeil Administrator]

ITP Immune (or Idiopathic) Thrombocytopenia (ITP) and its cousin AutoImmune Haemolytic Anaemia (AIHA), where platelets or red blood cells are destroyed respectively, are thought to be present in some degree in many CLL patients. It can be rather difficult to separate out the relative contribution of low platelets or red blood cells due to three causes - all brought on to some degree by CLL:

1) Bone marrow infiltrated by CLL, so it is unable to make platelets or red blood cells

2) Enlarged spleen (splenomegaly). One of the spleen's functions is to filter out and destroy old and damaged blood cells, but when it becomes enlarged, it filters out ageing blood cells when they are still functioning acceptably).

3) Auto-immune disease; lymphocytes incorrectly develop antibodies (immunoglobulins) that attach to platelets and red blood cells, marking them for destruction by our immune system.

Some medical specialists suspect that neutropenia in CLL patients may also be caused by (2) and (3) to some extent, but it is much more rare than ITP and AIHA.

So yes, we have a few members who have had treatment for ITP and many that have had their hidden/unrecognised ITP treated successfully when their CLL is treated.

Like other CLL treatments, Ibrutinib should overcome your mother's ITP by cleaning out the bone marrow, shrinking the spleen and reducing the CLL tumour load, but it may be a slow process.

Neil

[Hidden]

My platelets were very low as well, and they gave me a transfusion of platelets in the hospital when I was admitted. When I started on Imbruvica the platelet count improved, after nearly 3 months platelets are still a bit low, but nothing like what they were. So, I'm hoping your mum improves too on Imbruvica (ibrutinib). I don't know what itp is, sorry. Good luck to your mum.

[Irishcll]

My wife had ITP and AIHA with her CLL and started Ibrutinib 2 years ago . Bloods are now normal.

Good luck with the treatment