What are my options for treating hairy cell leukemia?

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What are my options for treating hairy cell leukemia?

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Strides have been made in the treatment of

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hairy cell leukemia when hairy cell leukemia was way back

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it was described in 1958 after that until 1980s

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to 1990s,

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to 1990s,

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it was treated with splenectomy.

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That means they took out the spleen.

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That was the treatment.

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But around that time,

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But around that time,

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these chemotherapeutic agents were developed.

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These are called purine analogs.

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And there are two of these.

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We have cladribine and we have pentostatin

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Both of these are approved for treatment for hairy cell leukemia and usually

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these are the upfront treatment for hairy cell leukemia.

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these are the upfront treatment for hairy cell leukemia.

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And they have great responses.

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They lead to high remission rates and these remissions are usually durable.

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Most of the patients get like a decades out of

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initial treatment with these agents .

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Nowadays, there is a trend towards adding

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immunotherapy to these purine analogs in the form

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of monoclonal antibodies, for example, rituximab.

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So, those are combined with purine analogs.

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We also have now other treatments

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that have been used for patients with hairy leukemia. For example,

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we talked about the BRAF mutation.

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There's specifically a drug that targets the BRAF mutation vemurafenib.

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So vemurafenib can be combined with again, the immunotherapy

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rituximab and now also with obinutuzumab.

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And that also gives very deep responses.

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We have another class of medication called BTK inhibitor.

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We have data for ibrutinib, which is actually a drug

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approved for treatment for CLL.

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That also works well with patients with hairy cell leukemia.

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The purine analogs cladribine and pentostatin

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are given by IV.

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The immunotherapy rituximab or obinutuzumab.

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Those are IV infusions.

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Also ibrutinib vemurafenib are pills.

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So they're taken orally.