Dr Valentin Goede presented promising outcomes for elderly CLL patients at the 18th Congress of the European Hematology Association in Stockholm.

CLL is the most common leukaemia in the western world. Many CLL patients are elderly and have comorbidities rendering them ineligible for aggressive standard treatments.

It has been an unresolved question whether (i) combination treatment with the chemotherapeutic drug chlorambucil plus a monoclonal CD20 antibody improves outcomes for such patients compared to treatment with chlorambucil alone and (ii) these patients benefit from the use of the novel CD20 antibody obinutuzumab (GA101) relative to the approved CD20 antibody rituximab.

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