Role of Patient's Age and Comorbidities in Therapy of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Abstract

Background & Aims. New schemes of the antitumor therapy of CLL resulted in improvement of survival of relatively young patients. However, the therapy outcomes of elderly patients are still unsatisfactory. Erroneous overestimation of expected toxicity of standard therapeutic regimens in some elderly patients may play a certain role, thus leading to prescription of less effective regimens. Therefore, the urgent problem is to find objective criteria for risk stratification in CLL. The aim of the study is to evaluate the prognostic significance of patient's age and the CIRS-G index in elderly patients treated with fludarabine-containing regimens in first line treatment outside clinical trials. Methods. A retrospective analysis of 90 elderly CLL patients, treated with standard FC and FCR regimens in the clinic of internal medicine of the First St. Petersburg State Medical University from 2001 till 2011. The age median was 59 years (range from 43 to 78 years). The comorbidity index was determined for each patient using the CIRS-G score. Results. The overall response rate did not significantly differ between FC and FCR groups and was equal to 81.6 % and 93.4 %, respectively (p = 0.109). Complete remissions were achieved in 72.3 % of FCR group patients and only in 46.5 % of FC group patients (p = 0.018). The retrospective analysis of treatment tolerability in primary elderly patients with different CIRS-G scores in the routine clinical practice demonstrated that the index has no independent prognostic significance. Among all CIRS-G components (14 organs and systems), only renal and hepatic diseases demonstrated significant correlation with the overall survival rate (p < 0.001 and p = 0.028, respectively). Conclusion. The creatinine clearance value in the beginning of treatment is the most important predictor of FC and FCR regimen efficacy in elderly patients. The use of the comorbidity index with a 6-score threshold as a contraindication for fludarabine-containing regimens proved to be unjustified.