How do I know if I am responding to treatment? What tests are used to determine a response?

How do I know if I'm responding to treatment? What tests are used to determine a response?

With CLL, a lot of our patients will have to start treatment because of either blood count changes like low red blood count, low platelet count, or really high white blood cell count. So often we can see the results of some of our medications pretty quickly based on lab tests that we're routinely doing in clinic. But for some patients that have lymph nodes or other enlarged spleen, sometimes they can see it even on their own. As early as a week or so into treatment that they'll see shrinkage of lymph nodes, which again is a sign of treatment response. But often for patients that have lymph node predominant disease, I'll closely watch them on some CT scans. So maybe after a couple of months of being on treatment, we'll take a sneak peak just to see what the early response may look like.