Symptoms:

• Enlarged lymph nodes, liver, or spleen
• Fatigue
• Abnormal bruising (occurs late in the disease)
• Excessive sweating, night sweats
• Loss of appetite
• Unintentional weight loss

Signs and tests:

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

Tests to diagnose CLL include:

• CBC
• Flow cytometry
• Bone marrow aspiration
• Serum protein electrophoresis

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 methods to stage CLL.

There are different ways to stage CLL. One system uses numbers to group CLL into low-, intermediate-, and high-risk categories. Generally, the higher the stage number, the more advanced the cancer. Another system uses letters to stage CLL according to how many lymph node groups are affected and whether or not you have a drop in red blood cells and platelets.