Personalized medical treatment strategies for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia

Abstract

Management of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia has become increasingly difficult over the last few years since there are a variety of treatment options available. The ultimate challenge is to decide the most appropriate treatment strategy for an individual patient. To facilitate this, assessment of an individual patient’s disease in terms of status, tempo and response to initial treatment needs to be determined. This review article discusses the current treatment options in the management of chronic myeloid leukemia, the factors that influence management decisions and suggests how treatment for the individual patient may be tailored whilst involving the patient in the decision-making process.

Keywords::

• accelerated phase
• allogenic transplantation
• autologous transplantation
• blast phase
• hydroxyurea
• chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)
• chronic phase
• imatinib
• interferon-α
• reduced intensity conditioned transplantation