Management strategies for patients with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) have changed dramatically since the introduction of imatinib into clinical trials in 1998. Imatinib is generally accepted, at present, to be the most appropriate initial therapy for newly diagnosed chronic-phase CML; however, a proportion of patients will not respond adequately. Many of these patients may benefit from alternative treatment strategies, including second- and third-generation BCR-ABL kinase inhibitors and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Additionally, with continued improvements in molecular monitoring, it is much more clinically routine to measure ongoing treatment efficacy or characterize pending disease relapse via molecular analysis. The challenge is to now combine molecular monitoring information with timely treatment decisions to achieve the best possible outcomes. Additionally, unanswered questions about HSCT remain, and include (1) What is the role of allogeneic HSCT in CML? (2) What type of transplant, reduced-intensity or myeloablative, should be performed? The goal of this article is to provide an overview of where we stand in the treatment of CML in 2008.
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