A couple new approaches to treating a type of leukemia may help shorten treatment, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Using one of two drug combinations versus ibrutinib alone to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia, one of the most common types of leukemia in adults, may allow people to avoid continuous treatment, a new study finds.  William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, describes the findings.

Nelson: It's common to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia with ibrutinib, an oral drug is given continuously until you get worse. They did a randomized trial, more than 900 folks, 300 effectively on each treatment arm. They looked at three years their progression free survival was about 80% or so for all of the treatment arms. There were people who discontinued treatment as a result of side effects and there were more on the ibrutinib arm that discontinued treatment. I think in the end it looks like you can be without any treatment, somewhat less cardiac side effects, I think it's an advantage to not have to be continuously treated.    :34

The two combination treatments also rendered the disease undetectable in blood, Nelson notes. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.