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Blood, 15 June 2006, Vol. 107, No. 12, pp. 4658-4662. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on February 23, 2006; DOI 10.1182/blood-2005-11-4590. This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 2005-11-4590v1 107/12/4658    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Rights and Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Ravandi, F. Articles by Kantarjian, H. M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Ravandi, F. Articles by Kantarjian, H. M. Related Collections Neoplasia Clinical Trials and Observations Social Bookmarking                   What's this?  Previous Article  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Article  CLINICAL TRIALS AND OBSERVATIONS Eradication of minimal residual disease in hairy cell leukemia Farhad Ravandi, Jeffrey L. Jorgensen, Susan M. O'Brien, Srdan Verstovsek, Charles A. Koller, Stefan Faderl, Francis J. Giles, Alessandra Ferrajoli, William G. Wierda, Shirley Odinga, Xuelin Huang, Deborah A. Thomas, Emil J. Freireich, Dan Jones, Michael J. Keating, and Hagop M. Kantarjian From the Department of Leukemia, University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX; the Department of Hematopathology, University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX; and the Department of Biostatistics, University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX. Although the nucleoside analogs cladribine and pentostatin produce high response rates in patients with hairy cell leukemia (HCL), a significant number of patients eventually relapse. Several studies have demonstrated that patients with complete remission (CR) have a longer disease-free survival. Therefore, strategies to improve on the initial response to nucleoside analog therapy are likely to be beneficial, at least for a proportion of patients. We have treated 13 patients with newly diagnosed HCL (n = 11) or after failure of one prior chemotherapy (n = 2) with cladribine (5.6 mg/m2 given intravenously over 2 hours daily for 5 days) followed by 8 weekly doses of rituximab (375 mg/m2). All patients achieved a CR and minimal residual disease (MRD) assessed by consensus primer polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or flow cytometry was eradicated in 11 (92%) of 12 and in 12 (92%) of 13 of patients, respectively. There was no decline in the absolute CD4 and CD8 lymphocyte number after rituximab. We conclude that eradication of MRD in HCL is possible. Whether this leads to a reduced risk of relapse would need to be evaluated in a larger number of patients and with longer follow-up. Disease characteristics may potentially be used to identify patients that are more likely to benefit from such additional therapy. CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this? This article has been cited by other articles: D. Jones, R. Luthra, J. Cortes, D. Thomas, S. O'Brien, C. Bueso-Ramos, S. Hai, F. Ravandi, M. de Lima, H. Kantarjian, et al. BCR-ABL fusion transcript types and levels and their interaction with secondary genetic changes in determining the phenotype of Philadelphia chromosome-positive leukemias Blood, December 15, 2008; 112(13): 5190 - 5192. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] S. O. Wanko and C. de Castro Hairy Cell Leukemia: An Elusive but Treatable Disease Oncologist, July 1, 2006; 11(7): 780 - 789. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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