Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia: Census of Patients Treated in Italian Haematology Units

This study was conducted by contacting the population of the Italian haematology units and collecting from 68% of them data concerning the number of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia visited over the previous 12 months, with the aim of obtaining an overview of the treatment of this disease and comparing the results with the prevalence estimates found in literature. The projection obtained (about 17,000 patients visited in the previous 12 months) is probably overestimated because of double-counting of patients who may have been treated at two different facilities during the year, although it is also underestimated since the internal medicine units were not involved. The balance of these two opposite factors is not known. It is important to bear in mind the approximation with which the count was performed in facilities for which no official data were available. Albeit with these limits, the results obtained are in line with some existing prevalence data and make it possible to determine the portion of patients at different Binet stages and in the various age ranges, identifying the corresponding therapeutic treatments. Use of the CIRS scale to classify patients as FIT and UNFIT was seen to be still somewhat limited.