Is "leukemia" an appropriate label for all patients who meet the diagnostic criteria of chronic lymphocytic leukemia?

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a frightening diagnosis which we believe is mistakenly applied to patients who will live their whole lives without symptoms referable to this diagnosis and never require treatment for it. Changes in the threshold of lymphocytosis required for the diagnosis have led to many more people being inappropriately diagnosed. In addition, modern prognostic factors have enabled us to predict with a fair degree of accuracy which patients presenting with a lymphocytosis will have a benign course and which will require treatment. We propose a new category of benign monoclonal lymphocytosis be recognized, better to reflect reality.