Report on discontinuation of tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy and the cure of chronic myelogenous leukemia in the 54th ASH annual meeting

Abstract

With the great success of imatinib mesylate(IM) and other tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI),chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is taken as a successful model of targeted therapies for human cancer.Although the emergence of TKI has greatly improved the prognosis of CML,the long-term TKI treatment may bring the problems of drug resistance,serious side effects,poor compliance,and heavy economic burden.Recently,people focus on whether patients would be cured after discontinuation of TKI treatment.Here,the progresses on discontinuation of TKI therapy in CML presented in the 54th American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting were reviewed. Key words: Leukemia, myelogenous, chronic; Tyrosine kinase inhibitor; Discontinuation; Cure; Molecular relapse; ASH annul meeting