What tests will I need to do for my hairy cell leukemia and how often?

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What tests will I need to do for my hairy cell leukemia and how often?

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The most common way that patients are diagnosed

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with hairy cell leukemia is by blood counts.

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So if there is a change in blood counts, it raises a suspicion.

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And those changes are, again, a decreased white

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cell count, a decreased hemoglobin are decreased platelets.

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And when the blood is seen under the on the slide, under the microscope,

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the pathologist will say, hey, I see some hairy cells.

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And there that raises the red flag.

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And now we have these sophisticated tests.

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We have flow cytometry, which is a specific test

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which looks at these markers that I told about on the surface of these

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hairy cells. And we run that test.

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And if those markers fit, for example, if the markers come back,

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CD5 negative, CD10 negative, CD-20 bright, CD11c positive,

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CD103 positive, CD125 positive, 

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CD123 positive, and CD25 positive.

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That's consistent with hairy cell leukemia.

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Now there are other tests which can also be done.

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For example, a bone marrow biopsy.

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That's an important part of investigation for patients

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who have hairy cell leukemia.

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So when a doctor recommends a bone marrow biopsy, what will happen

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is that they will take a small piece

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of the bone from the hip area and some liquid out of the grown bone.

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And that sample is sent out for various tests.

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The slides are stained with various

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stains, which a specific pattern

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will tell whether it's hairy cell leukemia or something else.

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Again, it will be run through flow cytometry, that will also

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confirm the diagnosis of here is the leukemia.

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And nowadays we have more sophisticated tests

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we can test for most of the patients with hairy cell leukemia

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have a classical mutation, have the BRAF mutation,

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and there's actually a stain for that and there's a genetic test

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for that we can do on the blood and the bone marrow.

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And that test, if that comes back

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positive, that also confirms the diagnosis of hairy cell leukemia.

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And if patients are having symptoms of those bellyfullness,

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we can do an ultrasound or we can do a CT scan

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to look for an enlarged spleen.

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So these are the usual tests that are done in a patient with hairy cell leukemia.