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Prognostic factors for patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia in chronic phase treated with imatinib mesylate after failure of interferon alfa

Abstract

We assessed clinical results in 145 patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia in chronic phase who satisfied criteria for interferon-α failure and were thus eligible for treatment with imatinib at the Hammersmith Hospital. We used univariate and multivariate analyses to develop a risk score based on features defined after treatment for 3 months. We identified a low neutrophil count and poor cytogenetic response (<35% Ph-negative marrow metaphases) at 3 months as principal independent predictive factors and incorporated them into a three-tier prognostic scoring system for individual patients. For patients in the low-, intermediate- and high-risk groups, the probabilities of survival at 24 months were 100, 82 and 40% (P<0.0001) and progression-free survival 100, 66 and 15% (P<0.0001), respectively. This Hammersmith prognostic scoring system was validated with an independent cohort of patients treated at another UK centre.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Lorraine Armstrong who was responsible coordinating the care of patients in these studies. We thank also the many medical and nursing colleagues who have participated in the treatment of patients. We thank Andrew Chase for cytogenetic analyses. We thank staff of Novartis Pharma (Basel) for valuable help and supply of Glivec. This study was supported in part by the Leukaemia Research Fund.

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Marin, D., Marktel, S., Bua, M. et al. Prognostic factors for patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia in chronic phase treated with imatinib mesylate after failure of interferon alfa. Leukemia 17, 1448–1453 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2402996

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