Cancer Assist Podcast: Understanding Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
Before they’re diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), many people haven’t experienced any symptoms of cancer. In fact, they’ve likely gone for a blood test for another reason entirely, such as diabetes or high cholesterol, only to find their white blood cells are higher than they should be.
On the most recent episode of the Cancer Assist Podcast, host Dr. Bill Evans sits down with Dr. Chris Hillis, MD, MSc, FRCPC, Hematologist, and Chief of Oncology at Hamilton Health Sciences. In this engaging discussion, Dr. Hillis explores the role of our immune system, blood cells, and diagnosis and treatment options for those living with CLL.?
“I think it’s important to talk about diseases like this, because there’s not a lot of public awareness about cancers that can be found totally asymptomatically, or by accident,” says Dr. Hillis of CLL, which, unlike acute leukemias, develops slowly. “If you’re going for a blood test for your diabetes, and now you’ve been diagnosed with a blood cancer — that’s a different kind of surprise or shock,” he adds.?
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, “lymphocytic leukemias (also known as lymphoblastic leukemias) develop from abnormal lymphoid stem cells.” Treatment can include targeted therapy or chemoimmunotherapy.
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“Because CLL is a very chronic, very slow moving condition, it unfortunately is not something that we can cure. It is something that folks, once they've been diagnosed, will live with for the rest of their life,” says Dr. Hillis, adding that treatment can get CLL into a very quiet state of remission; however, “there’s still a few of those CLL cells sleeping somewhere in that individual’s body, and they will rear up again.”
Dr. Hillis says his clinic focuses on “the management of patients who will live with hematologic malignancies for a good portion of their life, in some cases, many decades.” “And so the issues that we're focused on in my clinical practice are not just about the acute needs of undergoing cancer therapy, but how you manage your cancer therapy in combination with other diseases you may get over life,” he says.?