Explainable machine learning for chronic lymphocytic leukemia treatment prediction using only inexpensive tests.

Background: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is one of the most common types of leukemia in the western world which affects mainly the elderly population. Progress of the disease is very heterogeneous both in terms of necessity of treatment and life expectancy. The current scoring system for prognostic evaluation of patients with CLL is called CLL-IPI and predicts the general progress of the disease but is not a measure or a decision aid for the necessity of treatment.