cleaved lymphocytes in chronic lymphocytic leukemia a detailed retrospective analysis of diagnostic features through a global analysis of diagnostic features the aim was to profile cll patients with circulating cleaved lymphocytes at diagnosis a controversial prognostic factor although some of them could have been considered today as having nonhodgkins lymphoma all 106 patients of our retrospective series have had cll treatments slide review distinguished seven lymphocyte morphotypes with minimal a priori assumptions excluding in particular clinical staging systems fortyfive diagnostic features were analyzed in 37 patients corico correlations iconography a purely geometric method deciphered the multidimensional structure of the raw data probabilistic monoparametric tests were made on the 106 patients in ten patients binet stages 3a 6b 1c at least 8 of the lymphocytes were cleaved unrelated to the prolymphocytes this morphotype had neither links with the cd5cd23 910 vs 8086 fmc7 510 vs 2262 cd38 17 vs 764 markers nor with any major cll laboratory values only three links characterized it no cases of mixed marrow infiltrate nodular 1 interstitial 6 diffuse 3 ns a lower percentage of eosinophils ns and predominance of cd11c 710 vs 2066 p 002 in conclusion in contrast to the pll morphotype or to the lactic dehydrogenase ldh activity which was a strong prognostic factor in this series an independent detrimental value of the cleaved morphotype has not yet been found our study shows that free of modeling constraints this method makes possible a rapid and objective insight into variable interrelations if further explored in a prospective study this approach may contribute to the understanding of discrepancies in the literature