![Sample our Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5944/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Medicine-Dentistry-Nursing-Allied-Health.jpg"})
Abstract
The data reviewed place CLL in the context of other leukemias in humans. They suggest similarities but also some differences. Neither the issue of a preleukemia phase or the site of transformation in CLL is completely resolved. However, most data are consistent with the notion that CLL, like most human cancers, has a multi-step pathogenesis. Whether this phase(s) should be termed preleukemia is controversial. It also appears that transformation in CLL occurs in a progenitor-B-cell with considerable plasticity of phenotype expression and even genetic progression (albeit rarely). Perhaps CLL is best conceived as a B-cell disorder parodying normal B-cell development where a clone of B-cells escapes its normal fate and is thereby immortalized.