Watch and wait is when a patient meets the diagnostic criteria for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, but does not need treatment because the patient has either Rai stage 0 for 1 disease and is asymptomatic. Such patients can often be observed for very long periods of time. A third of patients with CLL do not need treatment in the first five years post diagnosis, and some don't need treatment ever during their lifetime. CLL can really unfold in different ways. You can have this very slow—indolent, what we call very slow disease that will progress over many, many years. And many patients will be observed for years before they ever require therapy. But there are some features
and some specific presentation they tend to present when a more a faster pace and patients may require therapy at the moment they are diagnosed or shortly
after they are diagnosed. So it varies a lot. So the most important thing is identifying it, sitting down with a doctor to understand your the specific features of your disease, but have the understanding that this is going to be a constant process. And it may be quite a while before we ever need therapy. CLL has a variable rate of progression. It is, as the name suggests, chronic leukemia. It is usually not a very fast moving disease. And generally you can in patients
who are diagnosed even expect several years without treatment in a proportion of patients.
HealthTree • January 9, 2024