Frailty is also a target for targeted drugs in CLL

In this issue of Blood, van der Straten et al 1 report that frailty, as measured by geriatric assessment (GA) in older patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), is likely to improve with targeted drug therapy.This observation was based on the HOVON139/GiVe trial, in which 67 mostly older patients (median age, 71 years) who were unfit for chemoimmunotherapy with fludarabine/cyclophosphamide/rituximab received 12 cycles of chemotherapy-free treatment with venetoclax/obinutuzumab (Ven-O) followed by prolonged venetoclax consolidation. 2