CLL treatment focuses on controlling the disease and its symptoms rather than on an outright cure. CLL is treated by chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biological therapy, or bone marrow transplantation. Symptoms are sometimes treated surgically (splenectomy removal of enlarged spleen) or by ("de-bulking" swollen lymph nodes).radiation therapy. Initial CLL treatments vary depending on the exact diagnosis and the progression of the disease, and even with the preference and experience of the health care practitioner. There are dozens of agents used for CLL therapy. 

Decision to treat

While generally considered incurable, CLL progresses slowly in most cases. Many people with CLL lead normal and active lives for many years—in some cases for decades. Because of its slow onset, early-stage CLL is, in general, not treated since it is believed that early CLL intervention does not improve survival time or quality of life. Instead, the condition is monitored over time to detect any change in the disease pattern.

Chronic myelogenous (or myeloid) leukemia (CML), also known as chronic granulocytic leukemia (CGL), is a cancer of the white blood cells. It is a form of leukemia characterized by the increased and unregulated growth of predominantly myeloid cells in the bone marrow and the accumulation of these cells in the blood. CML is a clonal bone marrow stem cell disorder in which proliferation of mature granulocytes (neutrophils, eosinophils, and basophils) and their precursors is the main finding. 

Radiotherapy is often given together with chemotherapy, and may be used with curative intent in patients with non-small-cell lung carcinoma who are not eligible for surgery. This form of high intensity radiotherapy is called radical radiotherapy. A refinement of this technique is continuous hyperfractionated accelerated radiotherapy (CHART), in which a high dose of radiotherapy is given in a short time period. 

For small-cell lung carcinoma cases that are potentially curable, chest radiation is often recommended in addition to chemotherapy. The use of adjuvant thoracic radiotherapy following curative intent surgery for non-small-cell lung carcinoma is not well established and is controversial. Benefits, if any, may only be limited to those in whom the tumor has spread to the mediastinal lymph nodes.

If investigations confirm lung cancer, CT scan and often positron emission tomography (PET) are used to determine whether the disease is localized and amenable to surgery or whether it has spread to the point where it cannot be cured surgically.

Blood tests and spirometry (lung function testing) are also necessary to assess whether the patient is well enough to be operated on. If spirometry reveals poor respiratory reserve (often due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), surgery may be contraindicated.

Surgery for lung cancer has an operative death rate of about 4.4%, depending on the patient's lung function and other risk factors. In non-small-cell lung carcinoma, surgery is usually only an option if the cancer is limited to one lung, up to stage IIIA. This is assessed with medical imaging (computed tomography, positron emission tomography). A sufficient preoperative respiratory reserve must be present to allow adequate lung function after the tissue is removed.

Lung cancer screening refers to strategies used to identify early lung cancers before they cause symptoms, at a point where they are more likely to be curable. Screening refers to the use of medical tests to detect disease in asymptomatic people. Screening studies have only been done in high risk populations, such as smokers and workers with occupational exposure to certain substances. This is because radiation exposure from repeated screening studies could actually induce cancer formation in a small percentage of screened subjects, so this risk should be mitigated by a (relatively) high prevalence of lung cancer in the population being screened. 

Chemotherapy, in the most simple sense, is the treatment of an ailment by chemicals especially by killing micro-organisms or cancerous cells. In popular usage, it refers to antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer or the combination of these drugs into a cytotoxic standardized treatment regimen. In its non-oncological use, the term may also refer to antibiotics (antibacterial chemotherapy). In that sense, the first modern chemotherapeutic agent was arsphenamine, an arsenic compound discovered in 1909 and used to treat syphilis. This was later followed by sulfonamides (sulfa drugs) and penicillin.

Bladder Cancer Treatment

The treatment of bladder cancer depends on how deep the tumor invades into the bladder wall. Superficial tumors (those not entering the muscle layer) can be "shaved off" using an electrocautery device attached to a cystoscope. Immunotherapy in the form of BCG instillation is also used to treat and prevent the recurrence of superficial tumors.

BCG immunotherapy is effective in up to 2/3 of the cases at this stage. Instillations of chemotherapy, such as valrubicin (Valstar) into the bladder can also be used to treat BCG-refractory CIS disease when cystectomy is not an option. Urocidin is phase III trials for this.