NICE has recommended that people with B-cell chronic leukaemia (CLL) who have had to stop their first chemotherapy treatment (for example because it was causing side effects or becasue their disease had progressed), may be treated with fludarabine tablets.  Fludarabine may be introduced at the stage where poeple with CLL have previously been offered one of the following treatments:

• cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin,  and prednisolone (CHOP)
• cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin and prednisolone (CAP), or
• cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisolone (CVP)

People with CLL should only be given fludarabine by a drip when their condition is such that they are unable to take the tablets.