Second-line treatment in CML

MD Anderson Cancer Center recently published a new article in Blood looking at second-line treatment with tyrosine kinase therapies with nilotinib or dasatinib after imatinib failure. This is a crucial question - how long should patients receive their new therapy before considering alternative treatments?

The results were clear that after 12 months of second-line therapy, patients achieving a major cytogenetic response (12MMCyR) had a significant survival advantage over patients in minor cytogenetic response or complete hematologic response, with a projected one-year survival of 97% and 84% respectively (P = .02).

The early cytogenetic response was strongly predictive of achievement of 12MMCyR, with less than 10% of patients showing no cytogenetic response at 3 to 6 months eventually attaining the target of 12MMCyR.

The researchers concluded that patients receiving second-line therapy who did not experience a cytogenetic response at 3 to 6 months should be therefore be considered for alternative therapies, ie patients on nilotinib could switch to dasatinib and vice versa.

Cancer: tracking progress for the treatment of CML

This fascinating short video interviews some of the top leukemia doctors around the world and looks at how tracking faulty chromosomes is now routine for people with chronic myeloid leukemia. Experts such as Dr Brian Druker and Prof. John Goldman explain what sophisticated laboratory tests can tell about treatment success:

Video