The First International Workshop on WM was held at the National Cancer Institute in Washington D.C. under the direction of Dr. Bruce Cheson. As Head of the Medicine section of the National Cancer Institute Clinical Investigations Branch, Dr. Cheson succeeded in bringing together 19 investigators from four nations who had an interest in WM, and began a dialogue on many of the important issues facing clinicians who treat patients with this uncommon but incurable disease. It was recognized at that meeting that many important facets about the diagnosis and management of WM patients remained to be defined, and that basic scientific as well as clinical data were very much lacking despite the passage of 60 years from the time the disease was first described by Dr. Jan Waldenstrom. These efforts lead to the formation of consensus panels which over the next two years would work to define both the diagnosis and management of WM, culminating in the adoption of detailed recommendations at the 2nd International workshop on WM held in Athens, Greece.
