A history of the chronic leukemias

Abstract

The chronic leukemias are a group of malignant hematologic disorders that vary in biology and natural history according to the character of the malignant cell in question. Chronic myeloid leukemia has been well defined as passing through a number of stages, from a chronic well-differentiated proliferative stage through an acceleration phase to a terminal blastic transformation. Much of the natural history has been transformed by progress in targeted therapeutics. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can have an even more chronic natural history but also one that is influenced by the genomic character of the individual case. The rate of new molecular and pharmacologic development in the last few years has indeed transformed the survival aspects of these disorders.