Analysis of factors predicting the efficacy of Imatinib in patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: A retrospective analysis

Abstract

Objective: Imatinib is a commonly used first generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). The efficacy has been reported as very high even in recent studies. Material and methods: A retrospective analysis was made of newly diagnosed CML patients treated with Imatinib as a first-line agent from January 2010 to January 2020. The patients were classified as those who obtained an adequate response and those for whom treatment was discontinued due to inadequate efficacy. The two groups were compared to analyze factors predicting the efficacy of the agent. Results: Evaluation was made of a total of 47 CML patients, comprising 20 females (42.6%) and 27 males (57.4%) with a median age of 55 years. Imatinib was discontinued in 19 patients because of inadequate response, and 28 patients were still continuing the treatment at the end of median 33.3 months follow-up duration. At the end of follow-up, there were 44 survivors (93.6%), and 3 non-survivors (6.4%). Median Bcr-Abl (IS, %) at the time of diagnosis in patients with response was higher than patients in discontinued group (67.6 [0.0-291.4] vs 41.9 [0.0-208.5], p=0.022). All other disease and demographic characteristics were similar in both groups (p>0.05). Conclusion: Almost 10 years of follow-up demonstrated that there is still an unmet need to determine factors predicting the response to Imatinib in CML patients. Larger population-based studies are required to specify patients with high risk at the time of diagnosis to monitor closely.