Myeloid diseases—Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML)—report from ASH 2019 on new developments

The recent American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting, held in Orlando, Florida, in December 2019 was an exciting meeting for researchers and clinicians working in the field of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), as well as for patients suffering from the disease. Interesting updates were presented on new kinase inhibitors (TKI) demonstrating great potential with low toxicities in heavily pretreated patients. Moreover, the 10-year follow-up data of the ENESTnd Study, comparing 2nd generation (2ndG) TKI nilotinib with imatinib showed a continuous benefit of the 2ndG TKI in achieving deeper molecular responses and less progressions to accelerated phase (AP) and blast crisis (BC), but no benefit in progression-free (PFS) or overall survival (OS). Encouraging data were also presented on the treatment of CML BC by combining conventional chemotherapy (FLAG-IDA) with TKI therapy (Ponatinib). Furthermore, great efforts have been undertaken to be able to predict the likelihood of successful TKI cessation in deep molecular remission for individual CML patients in first chronic phase (CP).