title: Hairy cell leukemia. Current management.
abstract: The long-term outlook for patients with HCL has brightened over the last 5 years with the development of two highly effective systemic therapies, pentostatin and alpha-interferon. Pentostatin can induce complete responses in over 75 per cent of patients and may offer cure in this disease. Splenectomy continues to have a role as first-line therapy in selected patients in whom it may offer a median remission duration of over 5 years. Alpha-interferon is the treatment of choice for patients requiring initial systemic therapy and can be used intermittently to re-induce remission in patients with disease progression off therapy. Outside of clinical trials pentostatin should be utilized only in appropriately selected patients refractory to interferon therapy.
authors.affiliation: Section of Hematology/Oncology, University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.
authors.forename: L L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Doane
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Ratain
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Golomb
mesh_terms: D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000473:pathology; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007370:Interferon Type I / Q000627:therapeutic use; D007943:Leukemia, Hairy Cell / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D015649:Pentostatin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D011379:Prognosis; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D012074:Remission Induction; D013156:Splenectomy
chemical_list: D007370:Interferon Type I; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D015649:Pentostatin