Partial remission in patient with Richter syndrome: an „emergency” treatment with pixantrone

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is the most commonly recognized type of leukemia in adults. The appearance of systemic symptoms such as weight loss, fever, or local symptoms in the form of rapidly growing organomegaly, lymphadenopathy in a patient with CLL raises the suspicion of transformation into a high-grade lymphoma – defined as Richter syndrome which is usually associated with very poor prognosis. The described case concerns a 71-year-old patient with this diagnosis, in whom due to the confirmed resistance to subsequent lines of immuno- and chemotherapy, an „emergency” treatment with a modern chemotherapy drug from the aza-anthracendion group – pixantrone was used. Treatment with pixantrone was associated with a relatively good response, translating into partial remission (also in the area of infiltrative changes in the head and neck structures), stabilization of the course of the disease and, consequently, allowed to extend the patient’s life.