Our Results

Five times more effective treatment

While the maximum that physicians could do in the 1970s was to provide palliative care to curb one of the frequent types of blood cancer, today’s patients with chronic myeloid leukemia usually live more than 25 years. The thing is that ever more targeted and effective therapies have been coming to the market.

What does it mean specifically? Look at the results of the treatment of the most frequent diagnoses in more detail:

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)

This tumor disease represents a quarter of all leukemias in adults. At present we treat almost 400 patients in the IHBT.
A major landmark in our possibilities was the initiation of the so-called targeted treatment (tyrosine kinase inhibitors). Thank to this outpatient therapy, patients live more than 25 years on average.
After the treatment start, which consists in the administration of pills, problems disappear and after just several months we reach the so-called cytogenetic response from most patients and after twelve months in most cases also a molecular response which is considered the optimal response. Apart from the above-mentioned treatment, patients can be also included in one of the clinical studies performed in our institution or, if needed, an (allogeneic) transplant can be performed. Thus, in total, approximately 90 per cent of patients treated by us have a long-term life expectancy, most of them without a major limitation of their life quality, enjoying a full-fledged working and personal life. Every patient receives maximum care which takes place in outpatient regimen. Cooperation with foreign institutions implies security that treatment will always take place in conformity with the latest therapeutic trends.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML)

In the IHBT we annually diagnose and treat intensively approximately 40 patients aged 20–68 years in the Inpatient Department. After administering one or two cycles of induction chemotherapy we reach a condition without leukemia (the so-called hematological remission) in 84 percent of patients. The mortality rate in this case is between five and ten percent. We earmark around a third of patients for bone marrow transplant.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)

The number of diagnosed patients with this disease in the IHBT is around ten a year. The age span is similar to that of AML patients, i.e. 20–68 years. After induction chemotherapy cycles, remission is achieved in approximately 90 percent of patients. Mortality is 5–10 percent. Some 20 percent of ALL patients are earmarked for a bone marrow transplant in the same year.