Can chronic granulocytic leukemia, or CML, be cured medically?

  Du Xin, Department of Hematology, Shenzhen Second People’s Hospital: Chronic granulocytic leukemia, or CML, is divided into a chronic phase, an accelerated phase, and an acute phase. The chronic phase is relatively stable with good quality of survival, but once the disease progresses to the latter, the prognosis is poor. Therefore, the principles of treatment are: 1. drug control to keep the disease in a progression-free state for a long time, such as the use of the targeted therapy drug Imatinib (trade name Gleevec), which has a very good quality of survival but is too expensive to take for a long time, please refer to the China Charity Federation Gleevec aid program for details; 2. allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation through a sibling compatible donor, which is suitable for national conditions and can be curative but This method is suitable for national conditions and can cure the disease, but it requires tissue matching with siblings, and the one-time cost is high, and of course the transplant risk is relatively high. It is important to note that transplantation is not a surgical treatment in the general sense, but a hematopoietic and immune reconstructive process. Of course, if these treatments are not available, traditional medications such as oral hydroxyurea and interferon injections can also improve the disease but do not help to slow down the disease process, especially for those taking oral hydroxyurea alone.