An expert hematologist/oncologist highlights

This article was originally published on OncLive

Future of CLL Management

Tara Graff, DO, MS: If somebody asked me the most important things to do with a newly diagnosed patient with CLL [chronic lymphocytic leukemia], first and foremost—I can’t say this enough—it’s so important to check all the different genomic aberrations. You need to know. We’re always used to, “13q, they’ve got great disease, they’re never going to need treatment.” But that’s a knee-jerk reaction. It’s important to know that, but there are so many other molecular aberrations that we need to know about, specifically 17p, TP53, and the IGHV mutational status. We need to know that. Looking back, when I’ve picked up patients who may have been seen by another provider, those weren’t checked. We could have potentially done them a disservice in the past if we gave FCR [fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, rituximab] to a patient who had an unmutated IGHV. They have a really poor response to chemotherapy-immunotherapy, but we didn’t always know that. That wasn’t always being tested routinely.

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