Dr. Sharman on Unmet Clinical Needs in High-Risk Relapsed/Refractory CLL

Jeff P. Sharman, MD, director of research at Willamette Valley Cancer Institute and medical director of hematology research for The US Oncology Network, discusses unmet clinical needs in the treatment of patients with high-risk relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Patients with high-risk CLL, defined by 17p deletions, TP53 mutations, or 11q deletions, typically have poor prognosis and inferior progression-free survival compared with patients who don’t have these markers, says Sharman.

However, recent studies suggest that patients with 11q deletions are not as high risk as patients with 17p deletions or TP53 mutations, Sharman adds.

Although treatment with BTK inhibitors such as ibrutinib (Imbruvica) appear to elicit favorable responses in this patient population, additional research is needed to deliver equally efficacious therapies to all patients with CLL, regardless of risk, Sharman concludes.