Assessment of BCR-ABL1 Transcript Levels at 3 Months Is the Only Requirement for Predicting Outcome for Patients With Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Treated With Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors: David Marin et al

5; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; ">We studied BCR-ABL1 transcript levels in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (CML-CP) at 3, 6, and 12 months after starting imatinib to identify molecular milestones that would predict for overall survival (OS) and other outcomes more reliably than serial marrow cytogenetics.

Patients and Methods:

We analyzed 282 patients with CML-CP who received imatinib 400 mg/d as first-line therapy followed by dasatinib or nilotinib if treatment with imatinib failed. We used a receiver operating characteristic curve to identify the cutoffs in transcript levels at 3, 6, and 12 months that would best predict patient outcome. We validated our findings in an independent cohort of 95 patients treated elsewhere.

more:  http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/30/3/232

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JCO podcast: Richard M Stone (Dana Farber) talks about the  Marin Study:

Using BCR-ABL Transcript Levels After 3 Months of Therapy on Imatinib is the Best Way to Predict Long-Term Outcome for Patients with CML Treated with Imatinib

http://jco.ascopubs.org/site/podcasts/audio/2012/jcopodcast-1-4-2012.mp3