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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Hematologic Malignancies
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1569707
This article is part of the Research TopicPredicting Prognosis in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia in the Contemporary Targeted Therapy Era: Where Do We Stand?View all articles
CD38 prognostic role in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients treated with standard chemotherapy or targeted agents: a monocentric real-life experience
Provisionally accepted
Laura Mettivier1Danilo De Novellis1,2Anna Maria Della Corte1Bianca Serio1Luca Pezzullo1Roberto Guariglia1Idalucia Ferrara1Raffaele Fontana1Maria Carmen Martorelli1Serena Luponio1Maria Teresa Buonanno1Rossella Marcucci1
Valentina Giudice1,2*
Carmine Selleri1,2- 1Ospedali Riuniti San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d'Aragona, Salerno, Italy
- 2University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy
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Therapeutic strategies for patients affected by Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) have undergone significant changes over the last decade, shifting from chemoimmunotherapy to targeted therapy. This retrospective, single-center, real-word study aims to identify candidate prognostic markers in 230 consecutive CLL patients treated with standard chemoimmunotherapies or targeted agents from July 2011 to June 2023. Patients receiving targeted therapy were more likely to have mutated IGHV, while those with a CD38+CD49d+ CLL immunophenotype showed an increased risk of refractoriness and disease recurrence, as demonstrated by multivariate analysis. Conversely, CLL patients with a CD38-CD49d- phenotype received great benefits when treated with targeted agents, whereas advanced age was a negative risk factor for patients treated with standard chemotherapy. In conclusion, CD38 expression emerges as a key prognostic marker in CLL, reinforcing the need to integrate clinical, biological, phenotypic, and molecular factors into treatment decision-making and both standard chemotherapy and targeted regimens remain effective in real-life settings.
Keywords: chronic lymphocytic leukemia, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, real-life, personalized medicine, CD38
Received: 01 Feb 2025; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mettivier, De Novellis, Della Corte, Serio, Pezzullo, Guariglia, Ferrara, Fontana, Martorelli, Luponio, Buonanno, Marcucci, Giudice and Selleri. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Valentina Giudice, University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy
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