Family planning is an important issue for the CML patients of childbearing potential, because they have a normal lifespan in the era of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI).

Management of CML on conceptions and pregnancies is not defined.

Pregnancy cases in CML patients are very rare and the data are scarce.

In total 305 cases of pregnancy in 234 CML female patients from 13 countries worldwide have been collected in the observational retrospective and prospective study of the European Leukemia Net.

The results of this study were presented at the 2019 European Hematology Association (EHA) Annual Meeting.

Most of the pregnancies (77%) ended in labor.

In 71% of pregnancies the patients conceived on TKI treatment and stopped TKIs immediately after pregnancy confirmation.

The rate of congenital abnormalities was 1,7%, no severe or life threatening abnormalities were observed in born children.

Deep molecular response or major molecular response (DMR,MMR) was in 44% of pregnancy cases with known molecular status.

Pregnancy was diagnosed at disease onset in 21% of patients.

Different therapies were used including interferon, imatinib or nilotinib at late pregnancy.

The outline of the patients in the ELN pregnancy registry in terms of conception and pregnancy may be valuable for the development of CML treatment schemes considering the variety of disease status, stage of pregnancy and therapy options.

Source: EHA