Hairy Cell Leukemia
Main Article Content
ABSTRACT
Hairy cell leukemia is a rare, indolent, chronic lymphoid neoplasm originating from a mature B lymphocyte. Diagnosis is based on hairy cell morphology, immunological phenotype by flow cytometry and/or immunohistochemistry in trephine biopsy, and the presence of BRAFV600E somatic mutation. In the classic form of the disease, the purine nucleoside analogues pentostatin and cladribine are recommended for the first-line treatment. These agents induce durable and unmaintained complete response in more than 70% of cases and up to 35% of patients demonstrate overall survival longer than 20 years. When rituximab is combined with cladribine in early relapse, complete response can be achieved in 89–100% of patients, with a three-year risk of relapse of only 7%. More recently, several new drugs have been introduced for the treatment of patients with hairy cell leukemia. Clinical trials have confirmed that the immunotoxin moxetumomab pasudotox, BRAF kinase inhibitors (vemurafenib and dabrafenib), and the Bruton kinase inhibitor ibrutinib are useful agents in the treatment of patients who are refractory to purine analogs.
Downloads
Metrics
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright of individual chapters belongs to the respective authors. The authors grant unrestricted publishing and distribution rights to the publisher. The electronic versions of the chapters are published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Users are allowed to share and adapt the chapters for any non-commercial purposes as long as the authors and the publisher are explicitly identified and properly acknowledged as the original source. The books in their entirety are subject to copyright by the publisher. The reproduction, modification, republication and display of the books in their entirety, in any form, by anyone, for commercial purposes are strictly prohibited without the written consent of the publisher.