New agents in the treatment of CLL

Abstract

Chemoimmunotherapy has resulted in high complete remission rates and long remission duration in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) but relapses occur and curative strategies still need to be developed. A wealth of new agents with a wide variety of mechanisms of action against CLL are currently in clinical trials. Twelve of these agents, which are in various stages of development varying from Phase I to Phase III trials, will be discussed. These include alkylating agents, monoclonal antibodies, immune modulators, cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors, BCL-2 family member inhibitors, protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitors, SRC inhibitors, HSP-90 inhibitors and small modular immune pharmaceutics (SMIP).