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Imatinib results in better outcomes than HLA-identical sibling transplants in young persons with newly diagnosed chronic-phase chronic myelogenous leukemia

Leukemia volume 27, pages 2410–2413 (2013)Cite this article

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Therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors has replaced a transplant from an HLA-identical sibling as initial therapy of newly diagnosed young persons with chronic-phase chronic myelogenous leukemia (CP CML), a shift is based predominately on comparing survival outcomes from studies of each therapy alone.1, 2 No prospective study or randomized trial has addressed the question of which therapy approach is better. To address this deficiency, we designed a study of outcomes of imatinib versus HLA-identical sibling transplants in persons with CP CML <55 years <1 year from diagnosis, with little or no prior therapy.

Subjects referred to Peking University People’s Hospital from April 2001 to March 2010 were evaluated for study-entry. Inclusion criteria included: (1) CML in the first CP using World Health Organization criteria,3 (2) age ⩽55 years; (3) interval from diagnosis to therapy assignment <1 year; (4) Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group score 0–2 and (5) no prior tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy. Eligible subjects were assigned to receive imatinib unless they had an HLA-identical sibling in which case they were offered a transplant. Last follow-up was March 2012. The study protocol was registered with Chinese Clinical Trial Registry as ChiCTR-TNC-10000955 (www.chictr.org) and written informed consent was obtained from all subjects.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 81230013), the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Program (grant no. Z111107067311070) and Leading Program of Clinical Faculty accredited by the Ministry of Health of China (2010–2012). Robert Peter Gale kindly acknowledges support from the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre funding scheme. Professors John Goldman, Hagop Kantarjian and Rudiger Hehlmann kindly reviewed the typescript.

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Author notes

  1. Q Jiang and L-P Xu: Qian Jiang and Lan-Ping Xu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peking University People's Hospital, Peking University Institute of Hematology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation, Beijing, China

    Q Jiang, L-P Xu, D-H Liu, K-Y Liu, B Jiang, X-H Zhang, Y Wang, S-S Chen, X-Y Zhao, H Chen, H Jiang, Y-H Chen, W Han, Y-Z Qin, Y-R Liu, Y-Y Lai, M Lv & X-J Huang

  2. Imperial College of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK

    R P Gale

  3. Division of Biostatistics, Institute for Health and Society, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    M-J Zhang

  4. Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Beijing, China,

    X-J Huang

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Corresponding author

Correspondence to X-J Huang.

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Competing interests

RPG is a part-time employee of Celgene Corporation, Summit, NJ, USA. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Jiang, Q., Xu, LP., Liu, DH. et al. Imatinib results in better outcomes than HLA-identical sibling transplants in young persons with newly diagnosed chronic-phase chronic myelogenous leukemia. Leukemia 27, 2410–2413 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/leu.2013.159

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