Chronic lymphocytic leukemia: ASH update 2014

At the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology 2014 in San Francisco, a variety of important clinical trials covering topics like first-line immunochemotherapy, maintenance therapy with monoclonal antibodies as well as confirmatory data of novel therapies such as B-cell receptor or BCL2 inhibitors were presented. In view of these data new clinical standards have been set up and validated, respectively. Taken together, the data presented underscores the importance of immunochemotherapy despite the upcoming era of tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) as a standard for (ultra-) high-risk patients. Moreover, the concept of response consolidation/maintenance with the use of monoclonal anti-CD20 antibodies as applied for indolent lymphoma may also be clinically relevant for CLL.