Is it common for CLL patients to undergo hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) as treatment?

[krikri1989ho]

Hi guys! My husband was looking around for information and he found about this, we were wondering if this is a common treatment?

Thank you very much!

[AussieNeil Partner Founder Admin]

It's never been a common treatment for CLL, even though CLL is curable via stem cell transplants. That's because transplant risk increases with age (and the median age of CLL diagnosis is about 70), it doesn't necessarily work and even if it does, there's the risk of having to live with long term side effects from Graft vs Host disease. Stem cell transplants are mostly used in younger patients with high risk disease and we do have a few members who have had transplants.

Transplants are much less often used nowadays than they were when only the older chemo treatments were available, because the new, targeted treatments are so very effective. It's possible nowadays to stay on a BTK inhibitor for over 5 years (some early trial participants are approaching 10 years). If that stops working, switching to a different BTK inhibitor usually works. If resistance subsequently develops, switching to a BCL2 inhibitor usually works, then there are other drugs and therapies approved or in development, including CAR-T and CAR-NK.

Neil

[krikri1989ho in reply to AussieNeil]

Thank you so much!