[Treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia in 2007]

Abstract

The treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has considerably evolved since imatinib mesylate has been introduced as a new therapeutic weapon for this disease. The 5-year updated results of the IRIS study confirmed that imatinib mesylate is the best first line therapy for chronic phase CML with an overall survival of 90%. Responses improve with time and complete cytogenetic and major molecular levels reach 87 and 70% respectively at 5 years. However, despite these remarkable improvements, new problems arise as sub-optimal responses, imatinib-resistances with recently identified BCR-ABL protein point mutations, responsible for a variety of therapeutic consequences : imatinib dose increase, alternative treatments with second generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs : dastinib, nilotinib) or allogeneic stem cell transplantation. The treatment of accelerated and blastic phases relies on imatinib +/- conventional chemotherapy, ideally followed by allogeneic stem cell transplantation, as newly developed TKIs are currently evaluated within this frame. Finally, BCR-ABL(T315I) mutations remain a new therapeutic critical challenge as none of the three TKIs (imatinib, nilotinib, dasatinib) can efficiently control such diseases.