Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a slow growing cancer and does not always need to be treated right away.
Watchful waiting or active surveillance refers to a period of time during which your care team will closely monitor your health, including your blood cell counts and any symptoms, and not begin treatment unless something changes with your status. This approach for chronic lymphocytic leukemia may be best for you if you don’t have symptoms.
Starting treatment early does not help you live longer. The watchful waiting approach can allow you to delay or avoid unwanted side effects of treatments. Some patients may begin treatment within months, or years. Some never need to begin treatment.
Reasons to begin treatment
In general, your care team may recommend beginning treatment if the effects of the cancer become worse than the risks of treatment. For example, if you:
- Have symptoms such as swollen glands in your neck, or swelling in your stomach, fatigue, excessive sweating or night sweats, fever, recurrent infections, appetite loss and unintentional weight loss.
- Organ failure. One or more of your organs has stopped working properly.
- Enlarged spleen and/or lymph nodes, or they are growing quickly and causing discomfort.
- Low red blood cell count
- Low number of platelets