0000000000735614
AUTHOR
T. Lahaye
Dynamics of BCR-ABL mRNA expression in first-line therapy of chronic myelogenous leukemia patients with imatinib or interferon alpha/ara-C.
We sought to determine dynamics of BCR-ABL mRNA expression levels in 139 patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in early chronic phase, randomized to receive imatinib (n=69) or interferon (IFN)/Ara-C (n=70). The response was sequentially monitored by cytogenetics from bone marrow metaphases (n=803) and qualitative and quantitative RT-PCR from peripheral blood samples (n=1117). Complete cytogenetic response (CCR) was achieved in 60 (imatinib, 87%) vs 10 patients (IFN/Ara-C, 14%) after a median observation time of 24 months. Within the first year after CCR, best median ratio BCR-ABL/ABL was 0.087%, (imatinib, n=48) vs 0.27% (IFN/Ara-C, n=9, P=0.025). BCR-ABL was undetectable in 25 c…
Combination Treatment with Imatinib and Mitoxantrone/Etoposide Is a Suitable Preparative Regimen before Allogeneic Transplantation in Patients with Myeloid Blast Crisis of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia.
Abstract In advanced BCR-ABL-positive leukemia, combination of chemotherapy with imatinib is expected to result in better reduction of leukemia cell load and may delay or offset clonal selection of resistant leukemia cells, thus improving the survival. We carried out a prospective phase I/II combination trial for patients (pts) with myeloid blast crisis of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Pts were treated with imatinib+mitoxantrone/etoposide in four cohorts starting from mitoxantrone 10mg/m2/d and etoposide 100 mg/m2/d for 2 or 3 consecutive days and start of imatinib 600mg/d from day 15 (coh. 1 and 2) or from day 1 (coh. 3 and 4, respectively). After hematologic reconstitution following…