Outcome of young adults with chronic myeloid leukemia treated with upfront imatinib: A single institutional experience

Abstract

Background: Young adult patients with malignancy are a distinct group of the population. In addition to their ailment, psychosocial issues including fertility issues should be addressed. Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a disease of the elderly population. The outcome with imatinib in young population is not known. Aim: To study the clinical profile and outcome of young patients newly diagnosed with CML on imatinib and to compare with those of elderly population in a tertiary cancer center. Materials and Methods: 369 patients with newly diagnosed CML were included in the study. Patients belonging to the age group of 20–39 years were used as the study group and those who were more than 40 years were used as controls. Both the groups were treated with imatinib. They were followed up for a period of 3 years. Milestones in terms of achieving hematological, cytogenetic and molecular responses were noted. Toxicity profile of the imatinib and the compliance of the patients were also recorded. Results: A total of 173 patients were in the study group and 196 patients were in the control group. Rates of achieving a hematological response at 3 months (94.2% vs. 93%), the complete cytogenetic response at 12 months (68% vs. 61%) and major molecular response at 18 months (72.2% vs. 67.6%) were among the study group and control group, respectively. None of them were statistically significant. Three years event free survival among the study group and the control group was (85.2% vs. 83.4%) respectively; however, the difference did not reach statistical significant value. Conclusion: This study shows that the outcome of young adults with CML is comparable to those of the elderly people with imatinib both in terms of response rates and survival.

Keywords

• Chronic myeloid leukemia
• imatinib
• pregnancy
• young adults