Imatinib mesylate in the treatment of hematologic malignancies

Abstract

The treatment of hematologic malignancies has been based for many years on chemotherapy and possibly, for the more aggressive forms, stem cell transplantation. In 2001, the signal transduction inhibitor 571 (STI571, imatinib mesylate) was reported to have striking effects in chronic myeloid leukaemia patients. Since then, imatinib became the first molecular-targeted agent approved for the treatment of human cancer and was later on demonstrated to be effective in other malignancies, such as Philadelphia positive acute lymphoid leukemia, hypereosinophilic syndromes, gastrointestinal stromal tumours and more recently, systemic mastocytosis and other myeloprolipherative disease-carrying platelet-derived growth factor receptor abnormalities. In this article, the authors review the evidence which led to imatinib approval in the treatment of several of the abovementioned diseases.

Keywords::

• imatinib mesylate
• molecular targeted therapy
• Ph chromosome
• signal transduction
• tyrosine kinase

Acknowledgements

The Authors are grateful to P Filippi and M Vitali (Novartis Pharma) for kind support and advices. This work was supported by COFIN (M Baccarani and SA Pileri), AIRC, BolognAIL, Ateneo 60% (M Baccarani and SA Pileri), Progetto Strategico di Ateneo 2006 (dott. Piccaluga), Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna grants and LeukaemiaNet.

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