As a result of the introduction of tyrosine kinase inhibitors, chronic myeloid leukemia
became from a fatal disease to a well-treatable chronic disease. The cause of the
disease is the forming of the Philadelphia chromosome leading to the constitutively
active BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase. With the use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors, chronic
myeloid leukemia patients in the chronic phase nowadays have a life expectancy comparable
to normal population. Choosing between available treatment options is influenced
by several factors including the age and comorbidities of the patient, the goal of
treatment and known side effects of the chosen drug. Treatment of patients refractory
to tyrosine kinase inhibitors may be challenging nowadays as well. The solution could
be the products with new mechanism of action, like asciminib, which is a BCR-ABL1
allosteric inhibitor and its efficacy is excellent in the above mentioned cases as
well. Advanced stage and blastic phase chronic myeloid leukemia have a poor prognosis,
beside tyrosine kinase inhibitors chemotherapy is necessary, and only allogenic hemopoetic
stem cell transplantation may provide long term survival for these patients.
