Episode 428: Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Treatment Considerations for Oncology Nurses

"Measurable residual disease is where I think the terminology fits best in that, it is intended to measure the amount of cancer cells that are present in the blood or bone marrow at the time the sample was collected. We can identify one cancer cell in a million. Where that can be really valuable is when we start to think about the duration of treatments and the response to some of our treatments," ONS member Caitlin Murphy, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, AOCNP®, chief nurse practitioner at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®, TCTCN™, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) treatment considerations for oncology nurses.

Music Credit: "Fireflies and Stardust" by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0

Earn 0.75 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD), including 45 minutes of pharmacotherapeutic content, by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by August 14, 2027. The planners and faculty for this episode have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose. ONS is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.

Learning outcome: Learners will report an increase in knowledge related to treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Episode Notes  Complete this evaluation for free NCPD.  ONS Podcast™ episodes: Episode 422: An Overview of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia for Oncology Nurses Episode 256: Cancer Symptom Management Basics: Hematologic Complications Episode 196: Oncologic Emergencies 101: Bleeding and Thrombosis Episode 184: Oncologic Emergencies 101: Tumor Lysis Syndrome ONS Voice articles: Fixed-Duration Therapy for CLL May Lower Cardiovascular Risks and Costs Less Than Continuous Treatment Individuals With CLL Face Increased Risk for Skin Cancer Master Hypersensitivity Reactions With These Strategies for Prevention and Management Patients With CLL Report Worse QoL and Other Factors Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing articles:  Acalabrutinib: Nursing Considerations for Use in Patients With Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma Pseudohyperkalemia in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: An Often Overlooked Clinical Entity Richter Transformation Arising From Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Venetoclax: Management and Care for Patients With Relapsed or Refractory Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia ONS book: Site-Specific Cancer Series: Leukemia (first edition) ONS symptom management resources:  Fatigue Prevention of Bleeding Prevention of Infection: General Blood Cancer United: Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Treatment CLL Society: Patient Education Toolkit Lymphoma Research Foundation: Lymphoma Treatments Patient education sheets Acalabrutinib Ibrutinib Pirtobrutinib To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.

To find resources for creating an ONS Podcast club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library.

To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email pubONSVoice@ons.org.

Highlights From This Episode "Blood work is a really nice way to evaluate if there is progression of the disease. And we evaluate their blood counts, specifically that complete blood count with a differential. We anticipate an elevated white count, and we anticipate that the absolute lymphocyte count is going to be elevated. That's characteristic of the disease. But what evolves and happens is that those numbers can rapidly change and what we get concerned about is if that white count—and the percentage of the absolute lymphocyte count specifically—starts to increase and double quickly." TS 5:52

"There are some components that help clinicians decide if we expect these things, this cadence of change to happen more readily, or if we feel really co