What is "chronic lymphocytic leukemia" (CLL)?

What is "chronic lymphocytic leukemia" (CLL)?

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia is another one of the chronic leukaemias that we treat. Similar to the differentiation between acute leukaemias being either myeloid or lymphoid, the chronic leukaemias have the same differentiation. So, the CLL or chronic lymphoid leukaemia involves a defect involving the lymphocytes; a type of white blood cell that help fight infection but in an indirect way. Additionally, CLL is on a spectrum of disease similar to SLL; small lymphocytic lymphoma or a type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It makes it very interesting to treat patients with CLL because they can either be presenting with a leukaemic form of their disease (which means that the abnormal cells which happen to be lymphocytes are floating around in their bloodstream) or they can be presenting more like a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma as in SLL or small lymphocytic lymphoma (at which time you would see more lymph node groups or lymph node enlargements similar to how people present or are diagnosed with lymphoma). So, the challenge in treating patients with CLL is differentiating whether or not you are dealing mostly with a leukaemia or mostly with a lymphoma, and the treatment can differ between the two.