Cladribine with immediate rituximab for the treatment of patients with variant hairy cell leukemia.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

In contrast with the classic form, variant hairy cell leukemia (HCLv) responds poorly to single-agent purine analogs, expresses unmutated BRAF, has shorter overall survival, and lacks effective standard therapy. No treatment has achieved a high complete remission (CR) rate even in small series, and of 39 reported cases from six studies, overall response rate after cladribine was 44% with 8% CRs. Rituximab has been found to increase the sensitivity of malignant cells to cladribine, suggesting that combination with cladribine might improve response in HCLv. To test this hypothesis, patients with HCLv were treated with simultaneous cladribine and rituximab.

Experimental design

Patients with HCLv with 0 to 1 prior courses of cladribine received cladribine 0.15 mg/kg for

SUBMITTER: Kreitman RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3867590 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature