March 2, 2021

Dear Readers,

CLL Society has once again pressed the refresh button on our Official Statement concerning the COVID-19 vaccines to include the Feb. 27th FDA authorization of the J&J vaccine. We feel a responsibility to address your many questions, as informed by the latest credible data. Our updated statement is easy to read and fresh off the press, co-authored by Drs. Brian Koffman and Anthony Mato.

CLL Society’s Official Statement Concerning SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine in CLL Patients, updated 2/28/2021 and found here.

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) Patients and Protection against COVID-19: Passive and Active Immunity, Monoclonal Antibodies and Vaccines

You may have heard that when cloned (monoclonal) antibody cocktails are given early in the course of COVID-19 illness, they can lower the incidence of severe disease in high-risk patients. But could they be given pre-exposure to prevent us from ever contracting COVID-19? In this article, Dr. Koffman delivers a punchy mini-lecture to help us better understand a current study designed to test the effectiveness of two monoclonal antibodies in the prevention of COVID-19. Check it out here.

Conference Coverage 

During ASH 2020, Alexey Danilov was interviewed by Steve Bloom on COVID-19’s impact on clinical practice. The good news is that in order to provide the safest care when cancer patients who participate in clinical trials need to be seen in-person, many cancer centers in the United States have revised protocols and have put preventative measures in place to better ensure everyone’s safety. Learn more here.

Upcoming Events

Join us on Friday, March 26th (11:00 AM PT, 12:00 PM MT, 1:00 PM CT, and 2:00 PM ET) for CLL Society’s COVID-19 Virtual Community Meeting: Contagion, Variants, and Vaccines as CLL experts Drs. Steve Rosen and Alexey Danilov, infectious disease physician Dr. Sanjeet Dadwal, lab scientist Dr. Susan Leclair, and CLL Society’s own Dr. Brian Koffman bring you the most up-to-date COVID-19 information and answer audience questions. Register here and submit your questions!

CAR-T Ed Forum: The Basic Science and Latest Data

Please join CLL Society for a two-hour event on Wednesday, April 21st (10:00 AM PT, 11:00 AM MT, 12:00 PM CT, and 1:00 PM ET) as we continue to strengthen your learning about CAR-T therapy. Dr. John Pagel will define CAR-T, explain how it works, and share where this treatment might be headed in the future. Dr. Tanya Siddiqi’s ongoing CAR-T clinical trial at the City of Hope National Medical Center is well known. She will be on-hand to present her most current data showing the success of CAR-T therapy in CLL, both with and without ibrutinib. Dr. Larry & Sharon Saltzman will share their CLL CAR-T journey from both the doctor-turned-patient perspective and the caregiver point of view. Learn more and register here!

CAR-T Survey

Please take our CAR-T Survey! At ASH 2020 we learned that CAR-T cells may soon have an important place in treating CLL. As CLL Society continues to plan educational programs around these important developments, please help us by sharing what you currently know about CAR-T therapy. Take our CAR-T survey here. Thank you!

2021 ASCO: Special Free Admission for Patients and Survivors 

As our recent Ed Forum: ASH 2020 Comes to You highlighted, CLL Society encourages as much learning as possible from all major conferences where new CLL research is presented. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting will be held online June 4th-8th. This year, cancer patients and survivors are for the very first time able to register to attend the virtual meeting presentations at no cost! You may request a unique registration code by sending an email to patientadvocates@asco.org. Please note that unlike the ASH Annual Meeting, which is strictly devoted to hematology, ASCO is mostly about solid tumors. There may only be a few sessions that are specifically focused on CLL, most of which will be aimed at an audience of oncologists. Nonetheless, we realize many of our readers may find value and benefit from this unique new opportunity to attend ASCO. Find out more here.

Please Support CLL Society

CLL Society is the only CLL-specific, physician-curated public charity dedicated to meeting the unmet needs of CLL patients and their caregivers which holds the GuideStar Platinum Seal of Transparency.

We are all in this together.

Patty Koffman
Co-Founder & Communications Director
CLL Society

CLL Society Support Group Meetings Coming Up!

CLL Society Support Group meetings have moved to a virtual platform for most locations due to the threat of coronavirus. Support group members will receive an invitation to register for the meeting from the support group facilitator. If you are new to the group, please contact the RSVP email for the Support Group in your region. Once it is safe again, we will resume in-person meetings.

Visit the individual event listings on our website for the most up-to-date information on all CLL Society Support Group meetings.