Cladribine treatment of a patient with hairy cell leukemia and concomitant multiple sclerosis

This is the first report on a patient suffering from both multiple sclerosis (MS) and hairy cell leukemia. The patient was first treated with interferon-alpha. Due to disease progression two courses of cladribine were given resulting in an improvement of the clinical course of both diseases. Interestingly, it was possible to arrest and even ameliorate the progression of MS by administering as little as 30% of the dosage recently recommended for the treatment of this disease.