Whats the course of treatment for people whose CML is in remission? How often do they need to be monitored?
When people first start taking CML medication like Gleevec, their blood count must be monitored relatively often to make sure it doesn’t get too low. “The first milestone that we want to see is a complete hematologic remission by three months,” says Dr. Kalaycio. “That means that we want the blood count to be normal and the spleen not to be felt. Now that’s not what’s happening in the bone marrow necessarily, at this stage, it’s just in the blood.” Patients who don’t achieve that milestone are often switched to another medicine. “At six months, we want to see some degree of suppression of the Philadelphia chromosome in a bone marrow test,” explains Dr. Kalaycio. “It doesn’t have to be complete suppression, but it has to be something. We continue to check bone marrow biopsies every six months until the Philadelphia chromosome is no longer present.” Patients who achieve complete cytogenetic remission by six months, meaning that the Philadelphia chromosome is not longer present in a blood
