Hairy cell leukemia 1992

Hairy cell leukemia (HCL) is an uncommon chronic lymphoproliferative disorder, its treatment requires continuous update. Splenectomy as first line therapy has few indications; recombinant alfa interferon (IFN) leads to a high overall response rate but there are few bone marrow remissions; deoxycoformycin (dCF) or pentostatin leads to a higher complete bone marrow response rate than with IFN but follow-up biopsies show persistence of hairy cells; 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine (2-CdA) is a purine analog that after a single seven day intravenous infusion leads to a complete response rate. 2-CDA will probably become the drug of choice for first line therapy for HCL.