ABSTRACT
Ferrarini,2 and Nicholas Chiorazzi1 1The Department of Medicine, North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, New York
I. INTRODUCTION
B-cell type chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) is a monoclonal disease of the human CD5+ B lymphocyte lineage [1], B-CLL is very common, being the most prevalent leukemia in the Western world [2]. Approximately 7,500 individuals develop the disease each year and ~5,000 succumb to it annually [3]. Age and gender are important variables, since the incidence of B-CLL increases linearly with each decade above the age of 40 [4, 5] and men outnumber women by ~2:1 ratio [6] and may have a worse clinical outcome [7].
