Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can be a hard cancer to understand because it doesn’t follow a traditional path like with most other cancers that require immediate treatment.
“This can make patients anxious,” says Dr. Nicole Lamanna, a leukemia specialist at Columbia University Medical School. Which is why she says she spends a considerable amount of time answering questions and helping patients feel emotionally and physically safe. “I think a lot of patients will call this watch and worry. We call it watch and wait”, she says.
Read More CLL generally grows very slowly. So if your unhealthy white blood cellsthe leukemia cellsdon't outnumber or impact the rest of your blood count, there's no urgency to treat your condition.Some patients can be monitored for years and never need therapy. In fact, about a quarter of people with this type of CLL never need treatment. For those who do need treatment tests are done to see who might need therapy sooner. There is no curative therapy for CLL, says Dr. Lamanna, so there’s no point in exposing patients to the side effects or complications of strong chemotherapy.
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