Table 1.

Clinical outcome of consecutive treatments in our HCL patient

Line of treatment	Regimen	Dosage	Date	Treatment duration	Response	Progression-free survival	Grade III/IV toxicity
1	Splenectomy	–	05/1982	–	PR	12 months	None
2	Interferon-α	1.5 × 106 U/week	06/1983–06/1986	36 months	PR	36 months	None
3	Pentostatin	4 mg/m²	07/1986–03/1987	8 monthsa	CR	163 months	Recurrent infectious complications due to prolonged neutropenia
4	Interferon-α	4.5–9 × 106 U/week	01/2000–11/2007	95 months	PR	95 months	None
5	Cladribine	0.14 mg/kg/day	11/2007	5 days (1 cycle)	CR	49 months	Recurrent infectious complications due to prolonged neutropenia
6	Interferon-α	4.5 × 106 U/week	12/2011–08/2014	33 months	PR	33 months	None

CR complete remission. A complete remission was defined as the morphological absence of hairy cells in blood and bone marrow in combination with complete resolution of cytopenia and organomegaly

PR partial remission. A partial remission was defined as a complete resolution of cytopenia in combination with at least 50 % decrease in organomegaly and hairy cell infiltration of the bone marrow

^a4 mg/m² per week x3, then every other week x3, then once monthly x6