Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a tricky cancer because it can respond well to initial therapy, but then that drug sometimes stops working. The same thing can happen when different – second-line – drugs are used. The reason for this is that the disease tends to keep changing or mutating.

Chronic myeloid leukemia often responds to first-line treatment. Gleevec (imatinib) is the standard first-line medication. The disease usually quiets for a time, then comes back. A new drug has been approved to treat this blood and bone marrow cancer.

Since targeted therapies known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) have been in use, the outlook for people diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia has improved dramatically. Unfortunately, this trend isn't true for all patients.

The course of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has changed substantially thanks to the use of a class of drugs called tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). How these drugs are being used is changing too.

About 20 percent of all leukemias in the Western world are chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Today's treatments target an abnormal chromosome that causes the disease, but new theories about how to outwit this resilient disease are sprouting.