Immune Therapy for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Despite significant improvement in clinical outcomes of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), patients who experience failure of Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitors or venetoclax benefit from immune therapy approaches. Allogeneic transplant is a potentially curative treatment of CLL but is associated with risk of morbidity and mortality. Although still experimental, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy provides durable remissions in patients with deep molecular responses. This review summarizes the relevant literature and discusses an approach to treatment sequencing and timing of referral for immune therapy. Novel immunotherapy approaches are being investigated and potentially can be utilized in sequence or combination with targeted agents.