Outcome of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia-Chronic Phase Patients Treated With Imatinib: A Local Experience

Imatinib (Gleevec) was the first drug to target the breakpoint cluster region (BCR)-Abelson (ABL) tyrosine kinase and hence became the first line of therapy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. It provides a high rate of remission and survival benefits with minimal side effects. Imatinib was...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inClinical lymphoma, myeloma and leukemia Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 199 - 203
Main Author Al-Amri, Ali M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Elsevier Inc 01.03.2018
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Summary:Imatinib (Gleevec) was the first drug to target the breakpoint cluster region (BCR)-Abelson (ABL) tyrosine kinase and hence became the first line of therapy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. It provides a high rate of remission and survival benefits with minimal side effects. Imatinib was the first tyrosine kinase inhibitor that has revolutionized the therapy of chronic myeloid leukemia. It binds breakpoint cluster region–Abelson kinase domain inducing apoptosis of the leukemic cells. In this study, we assessed the efficacy and toxicity of imatinib therapy in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (CML-CP) in our hospital. We retrospectively analyzed the outcome of 17 patients with CML-CP treated with imatinib. The median age at the time of presentation was 35 years with male preponderance. The most common presenting clinical features were fatigue, abdominal distention, and discomfort. Forty-seven percent of patients had fever at presentation whereas 35.29% were referred to our hospital because of incidental findings of high blood cell counts. With a median follow-up of 8 years (range, 2-16 years) the overall survival is 100% and progression-free survival 85%. Two patients had acceptable adverse effects. After a median follow-up of 8 years, imatinib was found to induce long survival with manageable side effect in adult Saudi patients with CML-CP.
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ISSN:2152-2650
2152-2669
DOI:10.1016/j.clml.2018.01.002