Table 1.

Characteristics of CLL patients at sampling.

Parameters	CLL patients (n = 244)
Age in years: median (range)	67 (38–89)
Gender: female/male	105/139
Binet stage: A/B/C/n.a.	143/54/44/3
Bulky lymphadenopathy ≥ 5 cm: yes/no/n.a.	75/158/11
Splenomegaly: yes/no/n.a.	88/148/8
IgHV mutational status: unmutated/mutated/n.a.	150/83/11
β2-microglobulin (≥ 3.5 mg/dL): yes/no/n.a.	116/109/19
Genetic characteristics
TP53 disruption (deletion 17p and/or TP53 mutations): yes/no/n.a.	59/183/2
del(11q22): yes/no/n.a.	55/189/0
del(13q14): yes/no/n.a.	112/81/51
Treatment history: yes/no	121/123
Patients previously treated with immunochemotherapy	54
Number of previous treatment regimens: median (range)	1 (1–4)
Time from the last treatment to sampling: median (range) in months	24 (1–173)
Patients treated with novel drugs	67
Ibrutinib/idelalisib/venetoclax#	42/19/6
Number of previous treatment regimens: median (range)	2 (0–10)
Treatment duration on novel drugs: median (range) in months	9 (1–42)
CLL cells in peripheral blood
Percentage: median (range)	59.5 (0.01–95.9)
CLL cell counts (× 109/L): median (range)	15.8 (0.01–581)

n.a., not available; ^#5 patients treated with venetoclax were ibrutinib-resistant; Next-generation sequencing was used to detect TP53 mutations, Sanger sequencing for IgHV mutational status and cytogenetics and FISH analysis for deletion 17p and other abberations, as previously reported^16–18.