The patient advocacy session at the 2011 EHA congress considered the importance of patient compliance with treatment schedules. It has been shown that patient compliance has a huge impact on treatment outcome and this is especially important in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) where patients must continue to take medication for their entire life. Giora Sharf and Dr Lina Eliasson speak to ecancer.tv about research into CML patient compliance which revealed that one quarter of patients missed over 10% of doses. The panel outline some of the reasons why patients miss their medication, outline steps clinicians can take to increase patient adherence and discuss international variations and the degree to which patients exaggerate their compliance.