How Are Targeted CLL Treatments Administered?
How Are Targeted CLL Treatments Administered? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) expert Dr. Seema Bhat explains how self-administered oral treatments work for CLL patients and what potential side effects doctors are watching out for.
Dr. Seema Bhat is a hematologist at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – The James. Learn more about Dr. Bhat here.
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Transcript:
Katherine:
How are targeted therapies administered?
Dr. Bhat:
So, most of the targeted therapies that we have, we are happy to say that these are oral agents. The BTK inhibitors, the three that we have available, are oral agents. Ibrutinib is taken once a day, zanubrutinib and acalabrutinib are twice a day. Venetoclax, similarly, is an oral agent and is taken once a day. Monoclonal antibodies are also considered targeted agents. These are given as infusions in the clinic or in the clinician’s office.
Katherine:
The oral medications, patients take that at home? They don’t have to go into the hospital?
Dr. Bhat:
They do not have to go into the hospital. However, venetoclax is associated with a specific side effect called, “tumor lysis syndrome,” where this medication works so well that initially the cells with die off quickly and then things can collect in the blood.
For example, uric acid can go up, electrolytes can be up, any number can go up. So, we monitor what those initial weeks of starting venetoclax, we monitor patients very closely. We have them come back and forth to the clinic for monitoring, bloodwork, maybe hydration. And sometimes, if we think they’re at a very high risk for this tumor lysis syndrome, we admit them to the hospital.
After we cross that, those are administered at home. They can take these at home.
