Sustained long-term remissions with weekly interferon maintenance therapy in hairy cell leukemia.
OBJECTIVE
This study evaluates the efficacy of weekly α-interferon (IFN) maintenance therapy in hairy cell leukaemia (HCL), a disease that remains incurable.


METHODS
Nine patients (six male, three female, aged 41-69 yrs) with hairy cell leukaemia (HCL) received IFN 3mU s.c. once weekly as long-term maintenance therapy after achieving optimal clinical and hematological response to initial therapy with thrice weekly IFN.


RESULTS
Eight of the nine patients are in a state of sustained response at 3-17 years (median 12 years).


CONCLUSIONS
Our results are similar to those from three previous studies using long-term IFN maintenance therapy, bringing the total number of patients in sustained remission to 118. We hope these reports will lead to a multi-centre, phase III study of IFN maintenance therapy (including pegylated IFN, given less frequently) in HCL patients achieving optimal response to initial therapy, be it IFN or a purine analogue.
Ramakrishna
Raj
R
Southern Sydney Haematology and Graduate School of Medicine, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia.
Manoharan
Arumugam
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D000077190:Interferon alpha-2; D016898:Interferon-alpha / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D007943:Leukemia, Hairy Cell / Q000188:drug therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D012074:Remission Induction
D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D000077190:Interferon alpha-2; D016898:Interferon-alpha; D011994:Recombinant Proteins