Welcome.

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    • CLL Topics Updates is dedicated to the education and empowerment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients and their caregivers. If you want to learn more about CLL, its therapy options, prognostics, potential complications, interesting clinical trials and cutting-edge research, we can help. We are not affiliated with any company or institution in the healthcare business. Please take a few minutes to learn more about us and our mission.

    Visitors are welcome to browse our articles and read member comments.

    Chaya Venkat
    President, CLL Topics

    Newly diagnosed?

    CLL can be a very confusing disease. Newly diagnosed patients can use a little extra help understanding the jargon and making sense of their choices. This page is just for you. It has information we think you can use right away.

    Kinase Inhibitors

    Developments to watch: two targeted, designer-made oral drugs currently in clinical trials for CLL: CAL-101 and PCI-32765.

    Recent Articles

    Date Article
    06/23/2013 Time to say good-bye

    My “sabbatical” has ended, it has now become full fledged retirement.
    10/06/2012 Au revoir, not good-bye.

    There is a time for everything.  And now it is time for me take a sabbatical - which means there will be big changes in how we run CLL Topics and Updates.  This is just au revoir, I hope, not good-bye.  Please read below for what it all means to you and the services we offer.
    09/19/2012 Compassionate use access programs

    “Compassion” has become an old-fashioned word.  It seems not too many pharmaceutical companies make any decisions based on it anymore.  Allow me to share with you my recent attempts at getting compassionate use program established at one of our largest pharmaceutical companies.
    08/31/2012 News you can use

    I came across several interesting bits of news - some that you can use today.  Let me know what you think.
    08/21/2012 Bendamustine + Rituxan: better than FCR?

    While we wait for the results of the German double arm trial making this important comparison between these two chemoimmunotherapy regimens, here are the results of a single arm B+R trial that allows a reasonable degree of comparison against the present day gold standard of FCR.
    07/07/2012 PCI-32765 (ibrutinib): What We Know Thus Far

    PCI-32765 (ibrutinib) is one of the new generation of targeted kinase inhibitors that is getting a lot of attention.  ASCO 2024 had three important papers on this drug.  So far, so good!  But please make sure you read the Editorial section as well, where I highlight some adverse effect concerns based on feedback I got from people taking this drug.
    06/20/2012 End of Chemotherapy in Our Lifetime?

    Last month I was invited to speak at the CLL-PAG conference in Canada.  One of the other speakers was Dr. Mike Keating.  He prophesied that in the next 2-3 years chemotherapy as we know it today will become obsolete and we will begin curing CLL patients without such barbaric & toxic stuff.  Here is the technology that he thinks will do it.
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