Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML)

Excerpt

Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) is a rare, clinically, phenotypically, and genotypically heterogenous hematologic malignancy of elderly people with an intrinsic risk to progress and transform into secondary acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Outcomes vary substantially depending on risk, ranging from observation for a number of years to rapidly progressive disease and AML transformation. Due to the advanced age of many patients, a significant subgroup will not die from leukemia-associated death but rather from comorbidities. Therefore, it is important to know the actual risk of transformation into AML in these patients. Recently, we were able to provide a simple score based on age, peripheral blood blasts, and platelet counts that allowed us to define subgroups of CMML patients with a different cumulative transformation risk, including a low-risk group with a transformation risk of only 5%. …