New classification improves risk prediction in chronic leukemia

[shazie]

If chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients with a good or poor prognosis could be identified already at the time of diagnosis, physicians would have better possibilities to adjust their therapeutic and follow-up strategies.

medicalxpress.com/news/2014...

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

Thanks for this Shazie. Attempts to refine risk prediction are a regular mainstay of CLL papers and reflect the complexity and growing knowledge of all the influencing factors.

Here's another recent example, but with a much smaller set of patients (1,948 compared to more than 8,500 in the study you referenced):

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/247...

Unfortunately, it is hard to get access to this often sophisticated testing outside of a clinical trial, but we live in hope!

Neil

[Cllcanada Top Poster CURE Hero in reply to AussieNeil]

Here is the full paper in PDF, Neil mentioned...sometimes very hard to get on mobile devices

bloodjournal.org/content/bl...

[Cllcanada Top Poster CURE Hero]

More on this study can be found at ASH

Abstract

ash.confex.com/ash/2014/web...

[HAIRBEAR_UK Founder Admin]

Some on recent work by Cardiff CLL about a test that can separate at diagnosis patients with a good or poor prognosis We visited Cardiff CLL and interviewed Prof Pepper on Camera, he outlines what is reliable in genera luse today in UK CLL medicine and also touches on the breakthrough for patients and the study by testing telemeres; the ends of chromosones to determine prognosis in a study of 400 patients. This is in very patient friendly easy understand language.

youtube.com/watch?v=Dfn-B_Z...(Not working as expected?)

The BBC easy read article bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sou...

BBC wales TV coverage/video bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-288...

This is the paper

Telomere dysfunction accurately predicts clinical outcome in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, even in patients with early stage disease.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...

During our interview Prof Pepper confirmed that the test can do much more, and identify those likely to respond to different types of treatment too. It does seem testing technology to guide new therapies is keeping pace with new therapy development. translating this for the clinic will end the one size fits all diagnosis quickly identifying those who's disease is not likely to progress too..They are getting there

thank you Dick for forwarding news of the expert review published by Cardiff last month

Telomere analysis to predict chronic lymphocytic leukemia outcome: a STELA test to change clinical practice?

abstract:

"Defining the prognosis of individual chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients remains a significant clinical challenge. Consequently, there is a need to identify tests that can provide reliable personalized risk assessments. Here we discuss the problems associated with the currently used prognostic markers and emphasize the potential for using high-resolution telomere length analysis (STELA) for the accurate prediction of clinical outcome.

Given the development of targeted, less toxic therapeutics in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, it is crucial to accurately identify those patients who might benefit from early treatment and equally those who may not require treatment at all.

In this context, there is also a clear need for dependable predictive markers of response to drugs so that optimal treatment decisions can be made for individual patients."

informahealthcare.com/doi/a...

The full paper is behind a paywall

‘ for those interested in greater research details just send me a PM ‘.

Nick