Leukemia Treatment

Treatment for leukemia has improved remarkably during the past few decades as more patients are surviving and thriving following a leukemia diagnosis. Patients who come to the University of Chicago Medicine for leukemia care have access to the most advanced treatments, including:

• Targeted therapies (for some types of leukemia) that specifically attack the molecular abnormalities that cause cancers of the blood
• The most recent approaches in chemotherapy
• Immunotherapies, which stimulate or train the immune system to attack and eradicate leukemia cells.
• We were among the first in the nation to offer CAR T-cell therapy, a new type of immunotherapy that shows promise for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and other blood cancers. Today, many of our patients receive this advanced therapy on an outpatient basis, enabling them to return to the comfort of their home or nearby accommodations between treatments and appointments.
• Comprehensive blood and bone marrow stem cell transplantation, including unrelated donor and cord blood transplants, which make these life-saving procedures a possibility for more patients. UChicago Medicine had the best one-year stem cell transplant outcomes in Chicago and the highest relative to predicted outcomes, according to recent annual reports from the Center for International Bone and Marrow Transplant Research. Learn about our stem cell transplant outcomes. Many patients receive stem cell transplants on an outpatient basis.
• Supportive therapies to help reduce fatigue, infections and other problems that may develop due to leukemia or leukemia treatments
• Clinical trials of new treatments for leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes, including early Phase I trials and studies not widely available