Treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia

摘要

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common form of adult leukemia in Western countries with an incidence of 3.8 per 100,000 person-years [1]. CLL occurs twice as often in males as in females and is most common in the Caucasian population [2]. CLL is primarily a disease of the elderly. Sixty-five to 70% of patients are 65 years or older at diagnosis with a median age of 72 years [1,2].The diagnosis of CLL requires the presence of at least 5000/ul В lymphocytes in the blood for the duration of at least 3 months. Morphologically, the CLL cells are small, round cells with a narrow border of cytoplasm and a dense nucleus with clumped chromatin and indiscernible nucle-oli. Gumprecht shadows or smudge cells are frequently seen. Clonality of the В cells (kappa or lambda immuno-globulin (ig) light chains) needs to be confirmed by flow cytometry [3].