Investigational Patients with newly diagnosed CLL or early stage CLL are generally not candidates for investigational treatments.
• Chemotherapy agents are constantly being developed. Fludarabine is now thought to be a most useful drug;
patients with CLL obtained complete and partial responses of 70 to 80 percent in some studies. The long-term
results of Fludarabine therapy are not yet known. Fludarabine is also being used in combination with more
standard drugs such as Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide).
• Cytokines and biologic response modifiers such as monoclonal antibodies , interferon-alpha and
2'-deoxycoformycin are being evaluated.
Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML)
This chronic leukemia affects the myeloid cell line rather than the lymphocytes . The disease usually affects people in their fifth and sixth decades of life, but may occur even in infants.
The average survival for people with CML is 42 to 45 months with current therapies. About 60 to 70 percent of CML patients with the Philadelphia chromosome abnormality will progress into an acute or blastic phase. Without change in treatment at this stage, the average survival is four or five months.
Interferon-alpha, a biologic protein given by injection first daily then several times a week, has been shown in CML patients to effectively control white blood counts and decrease the size of the spleen . It has also been effective in reducing the number of leukemia cells with the Philadelphia chromosome in the marrow for a short
