2023-10-03 16:44:44
Up to 15% of people with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) recovered from Covid can develop signs and symptoms of Long Covid, the syndrome post-infection with Sars-CoV-2, which shows an increasing trend in the world. The data comes from a study coordinated by Andrea Visentin of the Department of Medicine of the University of Padua, published in the ‘American Journal of Hematology’. The work is based on data collected from over 1,500 patients from 80 countries around the world.
“Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a rare tumor, but represents the most frequent type of leukemia affecting the Western population”, they recall from the Veneto university. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, it has emerged that patients with hematological diseases, in particular those with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, have a high risk of developing severe forms of Covid-19.” Now the UniPd-led research also measures the impact of Long Covid on this category of fragile patients.
Another study concerns the treatment of LLC. His treatment “has radically changed over the last 10 years – underlines Livio Trentin, professor of Hematology at UniPd and director of the Hematology Unit of the University Hospital of Padua – Almost all patients receive biological drugs targeted against cells leukemia. Given the high cost of these drugs, it is critical to understand exactly how to best use these drugs and manage possible side effects.” For this reason “we coordinated a research group of 15 institutes spread across the Italian territory, managing to analyze the largest group of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia with TP53 anomalies treated in the first line of therapy with venetoclax, a biological drug in tablet form able to cause the death of leukemic cells – explains Visentin, first author of the work – This large national study group managed to demonstrate the high efficacy and tolerance of venetoclax as a first line of therapy, providing us with important information with practical repercussions on our activity daily”.
“These studies – comments Trentin – are the result of a fundamental network activity that we are developing with the hematology departments of the Veneto thanks to the Venetian hematology network (Rev), the Italian hematology departments thanks to Ail-Gimema”, Italian Association of Leukemia, Infoma and Myeloma-Group Italian adult hematological diseases, “and the European centers thanks to Eric”, European research initiative on CLL, “led by Professor Paolo Ghia of the San Raffaele hospital in Milan”.
“The importance of these studies is also social – concludes the specialist – because they were carried out thanks to the contribution of the voluntary association Ricerca per crede nella vita (Rcv), an association created by one of our patients Franca Boschello and her brother Renzo, and which supports my facility for about 20 years.”
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