A case series of patients with de novo Philadelphia-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia at tertiary care center SKIMS

Abstract

The well-established molecular pathogenesis of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and its consequences for laboratory testing and clinical management illustrate a classic paradigm for the importance of molecular diagnostics in targeted drug therapy. The success of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), Imatinib, as the currently recommended first-line treatment of early chronic phase CMLhas both fueled the need for timely and reproducible molecular testing of the BCR-ABL fusion transcript in diagnosis and monitoring. As ongoing research continues to refine guidelines for monitoring residual disease in patients undergoing TKI therapy, an understanding of molecular technologies and their interpretation is critical. In this regard, we at Cancer Diagnostic and Research Centre, Immunology and Molecular Medicine established a gold standard RT-PCR and RQ-PCR technique to diagnose and monitor residual disease in CMLpatients. JMS 2016; 19(2):82-84