Tailoring the targeted treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common form of leukemia in Europe and it remains incurable. Targeted therapies have revolutionized the treatment of CLL. However, many patients develop resistance, have severe side effects or relapse during treatment. In order to prevent ineffective treatment and toxic effects, there is an unmet clinical need for tailoring optimal therapy for each patient. The aim of the CLL-CLUE project is to identify novel biomarkers and implement artificial intelligence-based clinical decision support systems to guide treatment decisions. We expect that this will lead to significantly increased treatment efficacy, individualization of therapy and reduced drug use and side effects. In addition, reduced consumption of drugs and cost-effective outcomes will lower financial stress that the health care providers and patients experience. In the CLL-CLUE project, we have collected blood samples from patients who received treatment on clinical trials and for whom the treatment outcomes are known. By studying the patient blood samples that were collected before the treatments were initiated, we hope to identify biological markers, also known as biomarkers (characteristics of the disease) that are associated with treatment outcome. These biomarkers will then be used to guide treatment choice for other patients in a prospective clinical trial. In addition to laboratory-based biomarkers, routine data about patients collected as part of the clinical trials will be studied to develop new biomarkers based on those data.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common form of leukemia in Europe and it remains incurable. Targeted therapies have revolutionized the treatment of CLL. However, many patients develop resistance, have severe side effects or relapse during treatment. In order to prevent ineffective treatment and toxic effects, there is an unmet clinical need for tailoring optimal therapy for each patient. The CLL-CLUE project will identify novel biomarkers and implement AI-based clinical decision support systems to guide treatment decisions. We expect that this will lead to significantly increased treatment efficacy, individualization of therapy and reduced drug use and side effects. In addition, reduced consumption of drugs and cost-effective outcomes will lower financial stress that the health care providers and patients experience. The CLL-CLUE project will benefit from the transnational consortium, including access to patient samples from established biobanks and ongoing clinical trials, to reach the objectives within the project period. Predictive clinical and molecular biomarkers will be identified and fed into AI algorithms, already developed by the project partners, which will be optimized for predicting treatment outcome in CLL patients. In order to facilitate implementation into health care systems across Europe, health economic models will be developed for high-income and low-income European countries. Emphasis will be placed on involving key stakeholders, including patient organizations and health care professionals for their input before implementation. The AI-based clinical decision support system will be validated in a prospective clinical trial. The proposed project will be carried out as a collaborative effort including leading clinical and molecular research groups in CLL in Europe, together with key competence in development of AI-based decision support system for blood cancer patients and health economic evaluation in Europe.