Is Going for Cure in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Possible and Justifiable?

After more than a decade of treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients with the BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib, and despite the impressive clinical results of this targeted therapeutic, many questions remain unresolved. One major question is how to cure CML, and the next step for the future will be to address this key issue. CML is a good model of cancer. The fact that the majority of CML patients who respond very well but discontinue tyrosine kinase inhibitors later show evidence of molecular recurrence focuses attention on the need for further research on leukemic stem cells. The challenge now is to understand why, after stopping treatment, the leukemia recurs in some patients but not in others. If we win this battle, this progress will certainly benefit the treatment and management of other leukemias and solid tumors and will validate this new topic.