What if it came back?
Leukemia can come back even after treatment and cause the same problems it caused in the first place. Unfortunately, patients who had a relapse after successful initial therapy have an overall bad outcome and a lower chance of remission through chemotherapy. Many other factors contribute to outcome, including age, severity of the cancer in the first time, and how long did it take to achieve a good response previously.
Options for relapsed cancer include targeted therapy like gemtuzumab ozogamicin. This oddly-named drug showed such a good response in relapsed acute leukemia that it received an accelerated approval, but it can only be used in the presence of a certain genetic anomaly. Other targeted therapy include gilterinib, ivosidenib and enasdenib. Patients who didn’t undergo bone marrow transplantation in consolidation therapy should be considered for one in relapses.