Dr. Rogers on Determining Patients With High-Risk CLL

Kerry Rogers, MD, assistant professor, Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses how to determine patients with high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

The patients need to have a high-risk cytogenetic feature that predicts shorter survival from CLL and a shorter time to needing treatment, explains Rogers. An example of a cytogenetic feature is 17p deletion.

According to Rogers, patients with lower-risk disease can go decades without needing treatment. However, a patient with high-risk CLL will need treatment in 1 to 2 years. A potential therapy for high-risk patients is the combination of ublituximab (TG-1101) and ibrutinib (Imbruvica) since it demonstrated an objective response rate (ORR) of 78% in the phase III GENUINE study. This trial also demonstrated that ublituximab in combination with ibrutinib yields superior ORR to ibrutinib alone, which was 45% in high-risk CLL.