Survival Rates for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia
Highly effective drugs to treat most cases of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) first became available in 2001. There is no accurate information yet on how long patients treated with these drugs may live. All that is 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.
The American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team
Our team is made up of doctors and master's-prepared nurses with deep knowledge of cancer care as well as journalists, editors, and translators with extensive experience in medical writing.
Last Medical Review: February 24, 2015 Last Revised: February 22, 2016
American Cancer Society medical information is copyrighted material. For reprint requests, please see our Content Usage Policy.