Treatment Options for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Prognosis for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

The prognosis (chance of recovery) for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can be difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy because of differences in the rate of progression of the disease between patients and individual variations in terms of response to treatment. In general, a majority of patients with CLL survive 5 to 10 years. Research has shown that, as a group, women with CLL tend to respond better to treatment and survive longer than men.

Factors that affect the prognosis for CLL patients include:

• The stage of the disease
• The extent of spread of lymphocytes within the bone marrow
• The patient's response to treatment
• Whether a patient develops serious complications such as recurrent infections or a secondary cancer
• The patient's overall health

Although the various staging systems (e.g., Rai, Binet) that are used to classify patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia are useful for determining the prognosis, they cannot be used to predict the course of the disease with absolute certainty or accuracy. The reason for this is because chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a heterogeneous (dissimilar) disease that can progress at different rates even in patients with the same stage of the disease. For example, some patients with early-stage CLL develop a less progressive form of disease and can live many years before developing complications, whereas, other patients with early-stage CLL may develop advanced disease and complications more rapidly and live for a much shorter period of time.