Anna Schuh, MD, PhD from the University of Oxford, Oxford, UK discusses the importance of using appropriate techniques for the detection of genomic abnormalities in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) so that clinicians can make informed decisions about treatment. The majority of clinicians use FISH to determine whether a patient has a 17p deletion; however, this technique cannot detect a mutation and it is crucial to carry out further testing. Sanger sequencing is the most common type of further testing, but there is a requirement for more sensitive equipment to detect smaller clones of TP53 mutations as they can predict the patient’s response to chemotherapy. Dr Schuh discusses the limitations of blood tests, and recommends alternative and more sensitive tests to detect TP53 clones. This interview was recorded at the 2017 British Society for Hematology (BSH) Annual Scientific Meeting in Brighton, UK. This video has been supported by Napp Pharmaceuticals Ltd through an unrestricted educational grant to Magdalen Medical Publishing.