Drugs that are highly effective in treating most cases of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) first became available in 2001. There's no accurate information yet on how long patients treated with these drugs may live. All that's known is that most patients who have been treated with these drugs, starting in 2001 (or even before), are still alive.
One large study of CML patients treated with imatinib (Gleevec®) found that about 90% of them were still alive 5 years after starting treatment. Most of these patients had normal white blood cells and chromosome studies after 5 years on the drug.
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Last Revised: June 19, 2018
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