This week's artwork was donated by Lonny, a pediatric cancer patient who received treatment at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia . Filgrastim for cladribine-induced neutropenic fever in patients with hairy cell leukemia. Chronic urticaria as a presenting sign of hairy cell leukemia. In addition, the probability of obtaining another response with this drug in patients who relapsed after 2-CdA treatment will be addressed. Three of these patients were treated with 2-CdA again.
Responses are durable and long lasting.
Patients relapsing following a treatment with 2-CdA seem to respond to this drug again. We performed a study of priming filgrastim followed by cladribine and then filgrastim again to determine if filgrastim would lead to a reduction of neutropenia and febrile episodes. Thirty-five patients received filgrastim and cladribine and were compared with 105 historic controls treated with cladribine alone. The percentage of febrile patients, number of febrile days, and frequency of admissions for antibiotics were not statistically different in the two groups. Filgrastim regularly increases the ANC in patients with HCL and shortens the duration of severe neutropenia after cladribine.