Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: An Update on Current Treatment Approaches

During the last two decades, important progress has been made in the understanding of the biology, natural history, and prognosis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). In addition, new and more effective treatment modalities are changing the objectives of treatment in patients with CLL. In this regard, the purine analogues offer great promise and fludarabine is already considered the treatment of choice for patients failing standard therapies. The role of purine analogues either alone or combined with other agents as front-line therapy is being actively investigated. Certain situations (e.g, autoimmune cytopenias, hypersplenism) require special treatment approaches (e.g., corticosteroids, splenectomy). Transplants of hemopoietic progenitor cells are also increasingly performed. As a result of these advances, treatment of subjects with CLL can be decided on the basis of the individual risk of each patient and the possibility of curing some of them may become a realistic objective.