Dr. Brown on the Development of Treatments for CLL

Jennifer Brown MD, PhD, director, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Center, senior physician, associate professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the development of the treatment paradigm for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in the next 5 to 10 years.

According to Brown, it is impossible to determine the evolution of the treatment paradigm for the field of CLL. Currently, most of the drugs are being used as single agents and are planning to be used sequentially, but there is very little data supporting the sequential use.

There needs to be more combination trials looking at remission over many years, states Brown. The current model of the sequential single agents appears to lead to resistance which can be improved upon.