On behalf of the EUTOS network, Dr Verena Hoffmann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany presented data of a web- based registry of newly diagnosed CML patients at EHA 2015.

Since the introduction of tyrosine kinase inhibitors into the treatment of CML survival times have greatly improved.

Very little is known however whether these remarkable achievements of modern medicine as seen in clinical trials have been transferred to routine health care of CML-patients.

Thus we aimed to investigate if all CML-patients are treated in agreement with current guidelines and achieve equally good treatment results compared with clinical trials.

The European LeukemiaNet (ELN) and Novartis established a web-based registry to record all newly diagnosed CML-patients in 20 European countries or pre-specified regions covering overall 92.5 million inhabitants.

Those are the first data of this kind collected in Europe. The majority (94%) of patients were diagnosed in early stage of disease and received treatment with imatinib according to the ELN recommendations (80%).

Newer treatment options were used by patients in clinical trials or with chromosomal abnormalities.

Sub-standard treatments were used rarely, but mainly in older patients.

Survival was lower in our data than in clinical trial results.

However, after adjusting for the prognostic profile survival times were similar to those seen in clinical trials.

With the loss of patent for imatinib we expect even fewer patients to receive sub-standard treatment.

Watch the press conference for more information.

Source: EHA