A report of seven long survivors for evidence of prognostic factors in hairy cell leukemia

The clinical hematologic and pathologic findings of 30 patients with hairy cell leukemia observed between 1966 and 1979 were studied. Twelve patients had long-lasting course of the disease. Seven of them displayed a survival greater than or equal to 120 months, whereas 18 patients died within 36 months of the diagnosis. Their clinical and laboratory characteristics (age of onset, sex, ESR, hemoglobin, WBC, neutrophils, monocytes, platelets, spleen and liver size) were analyzed to ascertain possible prognostic features. Multivariate discriminant analysis, performed both with a direct method and with a stepwise method (Wilks' method), provided a discriminant function able to correctly predict the prognosis of the disease in 83.3% of the examined cases. Spleen size, neutrophil count, age of onset, ESR and liver size turned out to be the most important prognostic factors; in contrast, splenectomy did not significantly affect the prognosis in our cases.