CLL Society interview with Dr. Sameer Parikh: MBL is present in 5% of the population over age 40. Most will not develop CLL

[bkoffman]

CLLSociety Dr. Brian Koffman's ASH 2019 interview with Dr. Sameer Parikh: Did you know that there is a pre-cancerous condition known as Monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBL) which is present in 5% of the population over age 40? Most people with “low count” MBL will never develop CLL. Dr. Sameer Parikh is interested in studying what early changes differentiate MBL from other conditions and what causes a “high-count" MBL to progress to CLL. Read here: cllsociety.org/2020/10/ash-...

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

Plus the incidence of MBL increases fairly rapidly with age. From this systematic review paper: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

"For overall MBL, the age-specific prevalences in the Spanish study were 5.1% for the 40–49 years group and 5.3% for the 50–59 years group. The prevalence sharply increased in the older age groups: 17.5% (60–69 years), 21.7% (70–79 years), 27.3% (80–89 years) and 75% (>89 years) (13). In the Italian study population, the age-specific prevalences of CLL-like MBL were 0.8, 6.8, and 9.2% for participants aged <50 years, 50–69 years, and >69 years, respectively."

Particularly reassuring news for our members with low count MBL. I hope that from Dr. Sameer Parikh's research, a better understanding of how CLL develops results in some practical outcomes.

Thanks,

Neil