Most patients now receiving a haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) have been treated with first and second line TKIs pre-HSCT, raising concerns that these patients will have more resistant disease and accumulated greater toxicity from sequential lines of therapy, potentially compromising their outcome. We outline a series of 9 patients treated with imatinib then second generation TKIs for CML followed by HSCT and compare their outcomes with patients receiving imatinib-only pre-HSCT. Our case series demonstrates that second line and sequential tyrosine kinase inhibitors followed by HSCT is a safe and effective therapeutic approach for high risk CML.
Keywords: Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML); Haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT); Tyrosine kinase inhibitor.