Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffTreatment isn't always necessary for people with hairy cell leukemia. Because this cancer progresses very slowly and sometimes doesn't progress at all, some people prefer to wait to treat their cancer only if it causes signs and symptoms. The majority of people with hairy cell leukemia eventually need treatment.
Though you may be eager to rid your body of cancer if you've been diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia, there's no advantage to early treatment. Unlike some other types of cancer, hairy cell leukemia is quite treatable at all stages, meaning that waiting to treat your cancer won't make remission any less likely.
If your hairy cell leukemia causes signs and symptoms, you may decide to undergo treatment. There is no cure for hairy cell leukemia. But the good news is that new treatments are effective at putting hairy cell leukemia in remission for years.
Chemotherapy
Doctors consider chemotherapy drugs the first line of treatment for hairy cell leukemia. The great majority of people will experience complete or partial remission through the use of chemotherapy. Two chemotherapy drugs are used in hairy cell leukemia:
- Cladribine (Leustatin). Most treatment regimens for hairy cell leukemia begin with cladribine. You receive a continuous infusion of the drug into a vein over seven days. Most people who receive cladribine experience a complete remission that can last for several years. If your hairy cell leukemia returns, you can be treated with cladribine again. Side effects of cladribine include infection and fever.
- Pentostatin (Nipent). Pentostatin causes remission rates similar to cladribine, but it's given on a different schedule. People who take pentostatin receive infusions every other week for three to six months. Side effects of pentostatin include fever, infection, sensitivity to light, eye inflammation (keratoconjunctivitis), and nausea and vomiting.
A small number of people with hairy cell leukemia are resistant to chemotherapy, meaning they won't achieve remission using these drugs. Other people can't take chemotherapy. For instance, people with infections must avoid chemotherapy because these drugs suppress the immune system and can make small infections much worse.
Biological treatments
Biological therapy (immunotherapy) attempts to make cancer cells more recognizable to your immune system. Once your immune system identifies cancer cells as intruders, it can set about destroying your cancer. Two types of biological treatments are used in hairy cell leukemia:
- Alpha-interferon. Alpha-interferon was the first biological drug approved for cancer treatment. You might receive alpha-interferon if chemotherapy hasn't been effective or if you can't take chemotherapy. Most people experience partial remission with alpha-interferon, which is taken over a year. Side effects include flu-like symptoms, such as fever and fatigue.
- Rituximab (Rituxan). Rituximab is a monoclonal antibody approved to treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, though it's sometimes used in hairy cell leukemia. If chemotherapy drugs haven't worked for you or you can't take chemotherapy, your doctor might consider rituximab. Side effects of rituximab include bleeding, fatigue, headache and infection.
Surgery
Surgery to remove your spleen (splenectomy) was the first treatment used in hairy cell leukemia, though it's used only rarely today. Your doctor might recommend splenectomy if your spleen ruptures or if it's enlarged and causing pain. Though removing your spleen can't cure hairy cell leukemia, it can usually restore normal blood counts. For that reason, splenectomy may be useful in people with uncontrollable infections. All surgery carries a risk of bleeding and infection. Removal of your spleen can cause inflammation of your blood vessels (vasculitis) and can make you susceptible to infection.
