Outcome of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Patients Not in Deep Molecular Response: Results From the GIMEMA LabNet CML Network Database

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is currently managed as a chronic disease requiring long-term treatment and a close molecular monitoring in many patients. Evidence suggests that in a substantial number of patients who achieved a stable sustained deep molecular response (DMR) the treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) can be safely discontinued. Hence, treatment-free remission (TFR) is a strategy increasingly considered as a feasible treatment goal in about 20%–40% of CML patients. Nevertheless, a proportion of patients with CML in chronic-phase (CP) treated with TKIs still remain in stable major molecular remission (MR3) or less (MR2 only) without achieving a DMR, therefore requiring long-term TKIs therapy as well as a long-term molecular monitoring. The aim of our analysis was to describe, in the pure real-life scenario of the GIMEMA LabNet CML network, the long-term outcome of those CML patients in stable MR3/MR2.