Giuseppe Saglio, MD of the University of Turin, Turin, Italy provides an overview of the results of the Phase III trial of DASISION in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and the future of CML treatment (NCT00481247). In the DASISION trial, patients were randomized to receive either dasatinib or imatinib therapy. The findings were in favor of dasatinib therapy, which resulted in deeper and faster achievement of molecular response and further, it was well tolerated. There was a problem with the occurrence in some cases of pleural effusions. When this occurred the treatment was restarted or dosage was reduced. Prof Saglio further discusses the relevance of mutations for the treatment of CML with dasatinib or imatinib. He also discusses overall survival (OS) in the context of deeper molecular response. According to Prof Saglio, the deeper molecular response observed with dasatinib suggests that there is a possibility to have a real cure in future, i.e. discontinuing the therapy without risk of relapse. Also, in future, therapy will adapt depending on the patient.
Recorded at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the British Society of Haematology (BSH) and International Society of Hematology (ISH), held in Glasgow, Scotland.
