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Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)

Tests & Diagnostics

Patients with CLL usually have a higher-than-normal white blood cell count.

Tests to diagnose and assess CLL include:

If your doctor discovers you have CLL, tests will be done to see how much the cancer has spread. This is called staging.

There are two systems used to stage CLL:

The Rai system uses numbers to group CLL into low-, intermediate-, and high-risk categories. Generally, the higher the stage number, the more advanced the cancer.

The Binet system uses letters to stage CLL according to how many lymph node groups are involved and whether you have a drop in the number of red blood cells or platelets.

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