VIDEO: CLL diagnosis may increase vigilance for vaccination, cancer screening

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I think we're actually pretty lucky in the fact that CLL doesn't need to be treated for the vast majority of patients at diagnosis. So early screening doesn't necessarily equate to longer survival, since the vast majority of patients aren't going to need to get treated. I think the one benefit of having a diagnosis of CLL is that it may prompt you to be more vigilant about getting vaccinations, for example, and understanding the infection risk that comes with it — dermatology, cancer screening, things like that. But fortunately, early screening isn't necessarily critical for a patient's survival. Diagnosing CLL can be challenging in certain patients, especially when they have overlapping features with other indolent lymphomas. But again, the reassuring thing is sometimes it doesn't matter if we can exactly pinpoint what type of indolent lymphoma you have, because for many indolent lymphomas, the treatment, aside from maybe a clinical trial, is watch and wait until specific criteria for treatment are met. So, I would say, that's one of the perks of CLL. It's typically easy to screen. And it's also nice that patients, often, can be diagnosed on peripheral flow cytometry. They don't require invasive biopsies or a bone marrow biopsy necessarily. One potential challenge I do see with CLL is that prognostication, which is a big part of, you know, when a patient is initially diagnosed, can become more complex over the years. And so, it can be challenging. We know having a cytogenetic and molecular risk assessment for patients is really important, not just to guiding what type of treatment they should get, but also it can be prognostic in determining the time to first-line therapy. So, patients really value knowing, "Hey, what's the likelihood of me actually needing treatment in the next 5 years?" for example. That's not always available for all providers across the country. So, if there's one thing I would change, I wish all of my colleagues had access to that kind of data to give their patients.