This article was originally published by Targeted Oncology 

During a virtual Case Based Peer Perspective event, Jonathon B. Cohen, MD, MS, the codirector of the Lymphoma Program, medical director of Infusion Servies, and associate professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute, discussed a case of a 71-year-old woman diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Targeted Oncology™: What are reasonable treatment options to consider in a patient with CLL?

COHEN: The National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines offer 6 treatment options for patients with del(17p).¹ As I tell my fellows when I work with them, if you ever see a list of preferred regimens with 6 options, that likely means that nobody really knows what the best option is.

The 1 option not listed in the guideline is chemotherapy, especially in the relapsed setting for patients with del(17p). I generally would not use chemotherapy.

The only exception to that might be a situation where we have a patient who’s young and for whom we’re thinking about moving on to something like an allogeneic transplant or some other definitive therapy. We might consider using chemotherapy for a cycle or 2. But otherwise, if you’re not going in that direction, that’s the 1 thing we do feel comfortable saying—that is, that chemotherapy is probably not the right option.

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