Trends and socio‐economic disparities in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia 2014–2022: An England‐wide cohort study from the UNCOVER group

Summary To re‐evaluate chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) epidemiology in the era of modern therapy, data were extracted from the English National Cancer Registration Dataset (NCRD). A total of 34 427 consecutive diagnoses of CLL were recorded (2014–2022), the largest European dataset on record. In addition to known associations with age, gender‐ethnicity, multivariable analysis showed incidence rate ratio (IRR) variations with government region (IRR ranging from 0.78 to 0.94 vs. London), socioeconomic deprivation (1.06 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02–1.10] for most vs. least deprived quintile) and IRR fall in successive calendar years (0.70 [95% CI 0.67–0.73] for 2022 vs. 2014). With a median follow‐up of 74.4 months, 36.9% of patients had died, including 13.6% from blood cancer. 1‐, 3‐ and 5‐year overall survival (OS)/net survival rates were 90%/94%, 78%/87% and 67%/81%, respectively. Age, male gender, comorbidity and socioeconomic deprivation were independently associated with shorter OS and cause‐specific survival (CSS), with OS‐hazard ratio (HR) of 1.42 (95% CI 1.34–1.50) and CSS‐HR of 1.28 (1.16–1.41) for the most versus least deprived quintiles. In addition, government region was independently associated with CSS, with HRs relative to London ranging from 0.84 (0.74–0.96) to 1.12 (0.99–1.27). Our findings reveal previously unreported disparities in CLL incidence and survival based on place of residence.