When dealing with diseases, an important aspect of medicine is to know the outcome of a patient. It helps the doctor understand what he can do to make patients’ life easier and decide when and how to treat, as well as to inform the patient properly about their condition. This aspect is called a “prognosis”. In cancers, doctors avoid using terms like completely cured and only use them in very few types of cancers. Instead, they use terms like remission and survival, which can feel harsh or depressing. Survival in cancers is measured by percentage over a period of time. For example, a testicular cancer has a 5-year survival rate of 95%. Which means that the percentage of men who live for more than 5 years following their diagnosis is 95%.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is the most common chronic leukemia in adults, and about a million humans are affected each year of whom less than 7% die. It is different from most types of leukemia in its age predilection. It rarely involves humans before the age of 50, and more commonly affects males. If you have to choose one type of leukemia, it should be chronic lymphocytic leukemia and here are the reasons:
You are more likely to die of old age
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia mostly affects people above 50 or even 60 years old, and the mean 5-year survival is 83% with some patients living up to 2 decades with this type of leukemia. Thus, other “normal” causes of death have as much of a chance of killing you as CLL.
Symptoms present late
Unlike other types of leukemia, especially acute ones, chronic lymphocytic leukemia rarely presents with symptoms in the early stage of the disease. Patients can live for years without feeling a thing and they are usually either discovered in a late phase or through an accidental abnormal finding during a routine check-up, such as a swollen lymph node or an abnormal complete blood count.
Early cases need only watchful waiting
Unless there is evidence of rapid progression of the disease, there is no need to treat patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Treatment is one of the necessary yet torturing parts of cancer treatment and it is scientifically proven that avoiding it is a big positive. The reason behind this strategy is the fact that it is almost impossible to treat it without stem cell transplantation, and chemotherapy regimens are associated with multiple side effects. Furthermore, clinical trials have shown that there is no advantage either in the overall survival or quality of life if treatment is introduced early in the course of the disease.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia -or any other cancer- is not a thing you would wish upon your worst enemy. But everything is relative, and compared to other leukemias, chronic lymphocytic leukemia is the mildest, most tolerated type. This doesn’t mean that all cases are the same and don’t need treatment, especially because early progression of the disease can always occur. But, if you have CLL and your condition is stable, you are more likely to live for years before having to worry about chemotherapy or an early death.