The survival time of leukemia patients is related to the staging of leukemia, their own chromosomal gene mutations, the number of white blood cells at the time of the disease, and their systemic condition, and cannot be generalized.
- The 5-year survival period for acute myeloid leukemia is about 50%.
- The 5-year survival for acute lymphoblastic leukemia is 30 to 40%.
- Chronic granulocytic leukemia has an insidious onset, usually without characteristic symptoms, and is often detected on physical examination when a large spleen is found or when routine blood tests are abnormal for other diseases.
- Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is an age-related degenerative tumor that survives 10 to 20 years, with death due to acute changes and bone marrow failure.
In addition, patients with leukemia who are not treated with formal chemotherapy and rely only on support such as blood transfusions generally do not survive for more than six months. In some cases, death occurs in less than a week from diagnosis, and the main causes of early death are bleeding and infection.
The current primary treatment for acute leukemia is chemotherapy, and with the development of new drugs and optimization of regimens, combined with stem cell transplantation and CAR-T technology, the survival of most patients has improved significantly. However, the variety of chemotherapeutic agents is still small and lacking in targeting, resulting in drug resistance and reduced organism tolerance, leading to relapse refractory to treatment in most patients.
In addition, survival outcomes (prognosis) may vary widely even with the same treatment, depending on many factors, including the patient’s age, physical condition, co-morbidities, early or late treatment, and white blood cell type:
- In general, younger leukemia patients will have a better survival than older patients, and older people have poor health and are susceptible to other diseases, making the use of medications limited and the therapeutic effect that can be achieved;
- The risk of complications arising from the disease in the midst of treatment can affect the course of the disease and even shorten survival, especially in patients whose disease does not remit, or who relapse after remission, or who develop central nervous system leukemia, survival will be poorer;
- Poor health and poor quality of life at the time of initial diagnosis can also affect the outcome of leukemia treatment, making it impossible to achieve optimal results;
- Patients with bone marrow suppression, low or excessive blood count during the treatment phase can be detrimental and prone to complications that can induce progressive disease and affect patient survival;
- There are clinical subtypes of leukemia (refractory leukemia) that are relatively easy to treat and those that are more difficult to treat, and there are also genetic loci mutations involved, which can lead to subsequent relapses in patients with leukemia that has gone into remission.