CML Transplant Outcomes

An allogeneic marrow, peripheral (circulating) blood cell, or cord blood transplant (also called a BMT) is the only known treatment that can cure chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). An allogeneic transplant replaces the abnormal cells in the patient's bone marrow with healthy cells from a donor.

This page provides some data on CML patients' outcomes after allogeneic transplant. For a basic overview of CML and how it may be treated, see Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Imatinib (Gleevec®) and Transplant.

It is a good idea to ask your doctor for help interpreting these data and any other survival outcomes data you find. Your doctor can provide context for these data and discuss your specific situation with you. For more things to consider, see Understanding Survival Outcomes Data.

For allogeneic transplants using adult donors, the blood-forming cells can be collected from the donor’s marrow or from the bloodstream (peripheral blood stem cells, or PBSC). Figures 2 and 3 below showing data from the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) state whether patients received marrow or PBSC.

Though the outcomes for marrow and PBSC transplants may appear different below, there could be many reasons for this. For example, the patient groups may not have the same risk factors (such as age or past treatments). Doctors are still trying to find out whether one works better than the other. A large clinical trial comparing marrow and PBSC is now in progress.

Figure 1.
Probability of Survival after Transplants for CML in Chronic Phase, 1998-2006 - by donor type and disease duration. (CIBMTR data)

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Figure 2.
Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia: Survival of adult (age > 18 years) marrow recipients with myeloablative preparative regimens, by disease stage, unrelated donor transplants facilitated by the NMDP, 1998-2006. (NMDP data)

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Figure 3.
Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia: Survival of adult (age > 18 years) PBSC recipients with myeloablative preparative regimens, by disease stage, unrelated donor transplants facilitated by the NMDP, 1998-2006. (NMDP data)

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Information to share with your doctor

The Physician Resources section of this Web site includes information for doctors about timing and outcomes of transplants for CML, as well as references to related medical journal articles. You may want to share some of this information with your doctor.

CML Transplant Outcomes

Information to share with your doctor

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