I have been diagnosed with B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia/Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma. I'm looking for a layman's understanding of this. Are there any articles you can direct me to?

I have been diagnosed with B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia/Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma. I'm looking for a layman's understanding of this. Are there any articles you can direct me to?

I see there is a section here on B-cells. I hope this helps:
http://www.lymphomainfo.net/nhl/b-cell.html

According to publications by Charles A. Linker MD and Lloyd E. Damon MD at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, here's an introduction of sorts to Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.

The good news is that Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) is about the least aggressive form of leukemia, and even following diagnosis, the patient may not need any treatment for years and years.

In Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), a person's B lymphocytes don't 'die' in an orderly fashion, instead they build up in your body over time—first in the blood, then (after years), these B lymphocytes start to build up in organs like your liver, spleen, bone marrow, and lymph nodes.

Diagnosis is often incidental; a simple blood test shows an elevated white cell count. Other times, diagnosis occurs when your lymph nodes or spleen become swollen from the accumulation of those cells.

CLL is the only type of leukemia that uses a formal staging system:

• In Rai Stage 0-I (Early), your lymphocyte count is high and lymph nodes are swollen.
• In Rai Stage II (Intermediate), your spleen is swollen.
• In Rai Stage III-IV (Advanced), the build-up is in your bone marrow and is disrupting its function—meaning red blood cells and platelet counts are very low.

Now, patients with CLL in the Early stage typically aren't treated, since treatment hasn't shown to be beneficial. In fact, treatment doesn't usually start until the Advanced stage (unless the Intermediate stages are causing troublesome symptoms), when chemotherapy is introduced. The preferred chemo regimen for CLL is, arguably, not too bad: it only features fludarabine, a chemo drug known as an anti-metabolite (although it's a lengthy regimen) along with rituximab, which is an antibody, not a chemo drug.

This isn't to say fludarabine is the only chemo drug approved to treat CLL. Cyclophosphamide and chlorambucil are also sometimes used.

I hope this bit of information helps.