Therapy with imatinib myselate for chronic myeloid leukemia

The tyrosine kinase inhibitor, STI-571 (Imatinib mesylate, Gleevec) has been introduced recently for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). We analysed the results of 118 CML patients treated prospectively eith Imatinib. We also aompared the result of 79 chronic phase CML patients treated with Imatinib to these with 114 similar patients treated with interferon-μ (IFN-μ). Patient and Methods: Patients median age was 38 years, ranging from 13 to 65 years. There were 84 males and 34 females. 79 patients were in chronic phase (CP), 23 accelerated phase (AP) and 16 were in blast crisis (BC) at the time of treatment. 62 patients (CP - 48/79 and advanced CML 14/39) were pre-treated with IFN-μ alone, 43 with hyddroxyurea alone, 4 with stem cell transplantation (allogeneic-2, autologous-2) and one with busulfan alone. Imatinib daily dose ranged from 400 mg for chronic phase to 600 mg for patients with advanced CML. Median duration of Imatinib therapy was 6 months, ranging from 1 to 27 months