Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a clonal myeloproliferative disorder characterized cytogenetically by the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph). Therapeutic options of this disease are: hydroxyurea, interferon-a, allogeneic HSCT and more recently imatinib. This latter therapy demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of CML, particularly in the chronic phase. However some studies have demonstrated that there are additional chromosomal alterations related to resistance while others have reported undesirable clinical manifestations during imatinib therapy such as headache, nausea and vomiting. Because of the importance of this new molecular target therapy, it may be necessary to analyze the response of this treatment in respect to the quality of life of patients. The aim of this study was to analyze the clinical manifestations and the cytogenetic response during imatinib therapy in fifty-one patients with CML who had previously been treated using interferon-a. Cytogenetic analysis was performed in bone marrow cells using GTG-banding. The commonest clinical manifestations were mild to moderate: headache (37%), nausea (37%), vomiting (33%) and edema (33%). Patients that achieved major cytogenetic response had a significantly longer median survival than patients without response (p=0.007). Eight patients evolved to death; none of them exhibited cytogenetic responses to imatinib. Our results show the importance of the clinical (analyzing the degree of tolerance to the drug) and cytogenetic follow-up, where the presence of additional chromosomal alterations showed a distinct biological pattern that is not identifiable by molecular techniques, and so cytogenetic analysis is an important tool for the diagnosis and monitoring of this group of patientss.
Leukemia, myeloid; signs and symptoms; cytogenetic analysis
