BSH 2017 | Choosing treatment options for CLL and combining novel drugs
Clemens Wendtner, MD of University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany discusses the current treatment options for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) at the 2017 British Society for Haematology (BSH) Annual Scientific Meeting in Brighton, UK. There are important questions that need to considered prior to treatment, such as if the patient is in frontline or relapsed, and if the patient is fit and can face classic chemoimmunotherapy. Prof. Wendtner points out that chemoimmunotherapy plays a decreasingly important role in CLL, except in some niche indications. Further, a test for 17p deletion and TP53 mutation should be done as patients with these mutations do not benefit from chemoimmunotherapy and should receive a BTK inhibitor such as ibrutinib or PI3K delta inhibitor such as idelalisib. Prof. Wendtner further discusses combinations of novel drugs.
