Along with diagnosing and treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), your care team at Fred Hutch Cancer Center helps you understand topics like the outlook for your disease and how to think about statistics such as survival rates. We’re here to answer your questions and make sure you have the level of information you want as you make choices about your care.
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CLL Survival Rates
In cancer care, “survival rate” usually means the percentage of people expected to survive their cancer for at least five years from the time it was diagnosed. Data experts estimate this rate based on information about large groups of people with the same type of cancer. The rate doesn’t include the risk of dying during that five years for some other reason. For CLL, the relative five-year survival rate overall in the United States is 90.2%, according to the National Cancer Institute.
CLL Prognosis
The chance of surviving cancer for five years or more can be quite different from person to person. One important reason is the stage of the disease at the time of diagnosis. This means it’s impossible to predict the likely lifespan of any one person based on survival rates. If you would like to know more about the outlook for your disease, talk with your Fred Hutch care team. They can tell you more based on your unique situation.
Along with the disease stage, factors that may affect your prognosis include:
- Changes in certain genes, such as in TP53 or IGH
- If lymphocytes are throughout your bone marrow
- Your levels of white blood cells, red blood cells and platelet
- Results of tests that check your blood for certain substances, like proteins or enzymes, that give information about your health
- Your age
- Your overall health
- How your CLL responds to treatment (if it gets better, and how quickly and how low the level of cancer cells drops)
- If your CLL has come back
- If your CLL turns into lymphoma (Richter transformation or Richter syndrome) or prolymphocytic leukemia
- If you get another type of cancer after CLL