Current Cancer Drug Targets - Volume 13, Issue 7, 2013

Over the past decades the prognosis of patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) has radically changed due to groundbreaking scientific and translational studies that have revealed the biologic basis of such a hematologic malignancy. These studies have led to the rapid development of many BCR-ABL specific tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), such as Imatinib, Nilotinib and Dasatinib, which have improved 10-years survival Read More

The insensitivity of Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) stem cells to Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor (TKI) treatment is now believed to be the main reason for disease persistence experienced in patients. It has been shown that autophagy, an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process that involves degradation of unnecessary or harmful cellular components via lysosomes, is induced following TKI treatment in CML cells. Of clinical im Read More

Although the imatinib based therapy of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) represents a triumph of medicine, not all patients with CML benefit from this drug due to the development of resistance and intolerance. The interruption of imatinib treatment is often followed by clinical relapse, suggesting a failure in the killing of residual leukaemic stem cells. There is need to identify alternative selective molecular targets for thi Read More

Tyrosin Kinase inhibitors (TKI), have dramatically changed the natural history of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) leading to an impressive increase in overall survival rates and allowing many CML patients to achieve a close-tonormal life expectancy. Unfortunately, there is growing evidence that these drugs are not curative, about 30-35% of the patients who receive imatinib become resistant or discontinue the drug because of si Read More

The prevalence of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is expected to double in the next 15 years. The introduction of imatinib significantly changed the prognosis of CML, challenging the concept of a fatal disease. Nowdays, imatinib, nilotinib and dasatinib are registered for first-line treatment of CML patients in chronic phase (CP). Considering elderly patients, the most extensively studied TKI is imatinib, that induces a rate of cytogenet Read More

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors induce sustained disease remissions in chronic myeloid leukemia by exploiting the addiction of this type of leukemia to the activity of the fusion oncogene BCR-ABL. However, these agents fail to eradicate CML stem cells which are ultimately responsible for disease relapses upon treatment discontinuation. Evidence that the immune system can effectively reject CML stem cells potentially leading to p Read More

The introduction of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) has reduced the indications for allogeneic stem cell transplants (SCT) in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) from 1500/year in 2000 to approximately 500/year in 2010. The recently updated indications by the European Leukemia Network include advanced-phase CML and nonresponders to second-line TKIs. Changes in transplant programs, over the past decade, h Read More

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a hematological disease accounting for about 15-20% of all adult leukemias. The clinical and biologic advances achieved in such a malignancy, represent one of the best successes obtained by translational medicine. Indeed, identification of the fusion oncogene BCR-ABL has allowed using of small molecule inhibitors of its tyrosine kinase activity which, in turn, have literally revolutionize Read More

Acute leukemias are characterized by recurring chromosomal and genetic abnormalities that disrupt normal development and drive aberrant cell proliferation and survival. Identification of these abnormalities plays important role in diagnosis, risk assessment and patient classification. Until the last decade methods to detect these aberrations have included genome wide approaches, such as conventional cytogenetics, but with a Read More