Molecular relapse of chronic myeloid leukemia after discontinuation of imatinib mesylate for maintaining complete molecular response for more than 2 years

Although imatinib mesylate therapy is effective for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients, there are still some unanswered questions. It is unclear whether imatinib can actually cure CML and whether this therapy can be safely discontinued in patients showing complete cytogenetic and molecular responses. This report describes the clinical outcome of a patient with chronic phase CML who discontinued imatinib therapy after achieving molecular remission. This patient has shown a relapse based on transcription-mediated amplification-hybridization protection assay (TMA-HPA) to monitor BCR-ABL transcripts, highlighting the uncertainty of discontinuing imatinib therapy for five months.