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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Feb 4.
Published in final edited form as: Leukemia. 2010 Jan 21;24(3):512–520. doi: 10.1038/leu.2009.287

Table 5.

Key Areas for Future MBL Research

I. Identification of epidemiologic factors associated with development of MBL

  • genetics

  • health behaviors

  • exposures

II. Clinical outcome of low count MBL

  • CLL like MBL

  • atypical and non-CLL phenotype MBL

  • prognostic markers

III. Identification of clinical and biologic parameters that allow optimal classification of patients with small B-cell clones (MBL vs. CLL vs. SLL)

  • characteristics of the clone

  • characteristics of the host/environment

IV. Identification of the biologic events related to progression of MBL to CLL or other NHL

  • biologic events in the clonal B-cells

  • biologic events/interactions related to the host/environment

  • genetic characteristics of the clone

  • germline genetic characteristics of the host

  • behaviors

  • exposures

V. Studies exploring a potential tissue equivalent of MBL