The chronic myelomonocytic leukemia that struck Silvio Berlusconi, who died today, is not classified among the most serious forms and can be treated with a type of latest generation chemotherapy that acts on the DNA. This was explained during the days of his first hospitalization at San Raffele in Milan by Claudio Cerchione, medical researcher director, Irccs Romagna Institute for the Study of Tumors ‘Dino Amadori’ and Presidents of SOHO – Italy (Society of Hematologic Oncology Italy).
In general, chronic leukemias, the hematologist told ANSA, “have a much more indolent and less serious course than the acute forms. This means that it is not always necessary to intervene immediately: in many cases it is in fact It is possible to keep the disease under observation without immediate pharmacological intervention, whereas therapeutic intervention is required when there is an ‘explosion’ of disease”. As in all leukemias, Cerchione clarifies, “the cells of the bone marrow are affected.
The particularity of the form that struck Silvio Berlusconi is that the disease is characterized by the increase of a particular population of white blood cells: monocytes. Treatment is required when cancer cells increase so much that they block the production of red blood cells, platelets and normal white blood cells by the bone marrow”. In these cases, he underlined, “treatment with latest chemotherapy is possible generation, defined as demitilating agents, which act on the DNA. This means that the chemotherapy drug restores the proper functioning of the DNA allowing the bone marrow to resume normal production of blood cells, suppressing the action of cancer cells. Together with chemotherapy, supportive therapies such as erythropoietin are also useful for a faster recovery from chemotherapy”. This innovative chemotherapy is carried out in hospital and these are drugs that “do not have major side effects and are usually well tolerated”.
The importance of treatment at a given stage is therefore crucial, Cerchione had pointed out, “to prevent the disease from passing from a chronic phase to a much more serious secondary acute phase”. In the chronic phase, on the other hand, “the treatments give good hope of stabilization and a worsening can be avoided. In other words, the disease can be kept under control even for a long time and with a good quality of life”. A more decisive treatment would be the bone marrow transplant from a compatible donor but this type of operation, concludes Cerchione, “is indicated for patients in good general condition and under 65 years of age”.
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