Susanne Saußele

TL;DR: Optimal responders to chronic myeloid leukemia treatment should continue therapy indefinitely, with careful surveillance, or they can be enrolled in controlled studies of treatment discontinuation once a deeper molecular response is achieved.

TL;DR: An expert panel to critically evaluate and update the evidence to achieve goals to achieve a stable deep molecular response (DMR) and discontinuing medication for treatment-free remission (TFR) in chronic myeloid leukemia.

TL;DR: Treatment optimization is recommended for pts missing these landmarks and early prediction of prognosis on imatinib is desirable to assure favorable survival or otherwise consider the use of a second-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI).

TL;DR: Early high-dose therapy followed by rapid adaptation to good tolerability increases the rate of major molecular remission (MMR) at 12 months, and achievement of MMR by month 12 is directly associated with improved survival.

TL;DR: MR(4.5) is a new molecular predictor of long-term outcome, is reached by a majority of patients treated with imatinib, and is achieved more quickly with optimized high-dose imatin ib, which may provide an improved therapeutic basis for treatment discontinuation in CML.