Patent ID: 7842461

Claim:
A method for determining the prognosis of and aggressiveness of disease in a subject with B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (“B-CLL”), the method comprising: analyzing Ig V H and Ig V L genes expressed in B-CLL cells from a blood sample from the subject to determine whether the B-CLL cells contain unmutated Ig V H and Ig V L genes, wherein the presence of unmutated Ig V H and Ig V L genes in the B-CLL cells is determined by assessing whether the DNA sequence of the Ig V H and Ig V L genes of the B-CLL cells of the sample is <2% different from a control germline DNA sequence of Ig V H and Ig V L genes, wherein the presence of unmutated Ig V H and Ig V L genes indicates an aggressive disease course and poor prognosis versus an indolent disease course.