Clinical staging of chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

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作者：

KR Rai，A Sawitsky，EP Cronkite，AD Chanana，RN Levy，BS Pasternack

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摘要：

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is characterized by a heterogeneous natural history. Some patients have an indolent clinical course and live for 10–20 yr without any major problems from CLL, whereas others have a rapid downhill course and succumb to their disease within 2–3 yr after the diagnosis. Approximately half of the CLL patients have a disease course somewhere in between the two extremes. It is extremely important for the clinician to be able to distinguish prospectively patients who would have a benign clinical course from those likely to have an aggressive course and poor outcome, so that subsequent appropriate therapeutic interventions can be carefully planned. Clinical staging systems allow us to categorize patients into different stages and thus help in predicting the course of the disease and survival outlook with a reasonable certainty. Moreover, stratification of the patients according to stage enables investigators to design and conduct clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of new therapeutic strategies.

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关键词：

Humans Lymph Nodes Hepatomegaly Splenomegaly Thrombocytopenia Lymphocytosis Adrenal Cortex Hormones Retrospective Studies Blood Cell Count Bone Marrow Examination