A patient shares her journey getting diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in her 30's. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Matthew Davids, MD, MMSc, enrolled her in a clinical trial and details the results of that study. The research was presented at ASH 2021.
chandra Schultz was in her early thirties when she was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia or Cll. It's fear that's just all it is. First question was like, am I going to be around to see my daughter grow? Like, is there any chance that I'm going to be a grandmother? You know? CLL is typically diagnosed when people are in their late sixties and is often a chronic disease that can be treated but not cured. One treatment is a chemo immunotherapy combination, but for patients with more aggressive CLL, the disease often progresses. The other treatment is a drug called a brutal nib, which is a pill that needs to be taken every day. Those patients need to then stay on uprooted as a lifelong therapy. And I think for a lot of patients with cancer taking a pill every day is just a reminder of the cancer Dana Farber Cancer Institute's Dr Matthew David's treats chandra when she first came to him. He told her about a study he was leading specifically for patients 65 or younger. That looked at adding that pill of Roatan IB to the initial chemo immunotherapy. The combination is called I. F. C. R. Therapy. The therapy would last for 2.5 years rather than a lifetime and I think particularly for these young patients who have hopefully decades of life ahead of them. The idea of having this time limited therapy that can have such durable impact without the need for ongoing treatment is very impactful. Dr. David says they now have nearly 3.5 years of data on how patients are doing after stopping their treatments and the data shows the patients are doing well, 97% of them with no sign of their disease worsening and that includes patients with more aggressive disease. The findings are getting presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology Meeting. As for Sandra, she's working, enjoying time with her daughter and currently going in for checkups but not on any daily treatment for her Cll. She says it's been an emotional journey and she's thankful to have played a part in this important research, the love that was brought to the table with this whole experience. I mean as scary as it was. I mean just like it was, it was so good I lucked out.
