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Hematology

Curing CML with imatinib—a dream come true?

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 8, pages 127–128 (2011)Cite this article

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Imatinib was discontinued in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who gained a complete molecular response (CMR). Of those patients with at least 12 months follow-up, 61% experienced recurrence, all of whom responded to rechallenge. The remaining patients maintained CMR, suggesting that imatinib may 'cure' a small proportion of patients with CML.

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Figure 1: Hypothetical model of chronic myeloid leukemia persistence and recurrence versus extinction.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to John Goldman, Imperial College London, for his comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Hematology and Hematologic Malignancies, University of Utah, Huntsman Cancer Institute, 2000 Circle of Hope, Room 4280, Salt Lake City, 84112-5550, UT, USA

    Michael Deininger

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  1. Michael Deininger
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Competing interests

M. Deininger declares that he has acted as a consultant for Ariad, Bristol–Myers Squibb and Novartis and received grants/research support from Ariad and Bristol–Myers Squibb.

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Deininger, M. Curing CML with imatinib—a dream come true?. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 8, 127–128 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2011.17

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