Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)
- Is a cancer of the bone marrow and blood
- CML is usually diagnosed in its chronic phase when treatment is very effective for most patients
- CML has three phases
Click here to access CML statistics.
What You Should Know
- CML is also called chronic myelogenous leukemia, chronic granulocytic leukemia, and chronic myelocytic leukemia. CML is one of four main types of leukemia.
- Hematologists and oncologists are specialists who treat people who have CML or other types of blood cancer.
- Most CML patients are treated with daily oral drug therapy.
- Since 2001, the Food and Drug Administration approved six new drugs
- There is a growing number of people living with CML.
What You Should Do
Talk with your doctor about your diagnostic tests and what the results mean.
Make sure your doctor continually monitors your response to medication, which is essential to bringing your CML under control.
How Does CML Develop?
The DNA (genetic material) of a developing stem cell in the bone marrow is damaged. This is called an “acquired mutation.”
- Stem cells form blood cells (red cells, white cells and platelets).
This damaged cell becomes a leukemic cell and multiplies into many CML cells. The CML cells grow and survive better than normal cells.
- CML doesn't completely interfere with the development of mature red cells, white cells and platelets. Therefore, chronic phase CML is generally less severe than acute leukemia.
As a result, the number of healthy blood cells (red cells, white cells and platelets) is usually lower than normal.
- Anemia is a condition when there is a low number of red cells in the blood which can cause fatigue and shortness of breath.
- Neutropenia is a condition when there is a low number of white cells so that the immune system can't effectively guard against infection due to a lack of neutrophils (a type of white cell).
- Thrombocytopenia is a condition when there is a low number of platelets which can cause bleeding and easy bruising with no apparent cause.
- Low numbers of all three blood cell counts is called pancytopenia.
The Philadelphia Chromosome
People with CML have an abnormal chromosome called the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph chromosome). The Ph chromosome is the result of a translocation between chromosomes 22 and 9. The translocation leads to the development of a cancer-causing gene (oncogene) called the BCR-ABL gene.
The BCR-ABL oncogene gives a stem cell instructions to make a dysfunctional protein called BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase, which leads to the development of CML.
For more information please refer to the free information booklet, Chronic Myeloid Leukemia.
Risk Factors
For most people who have chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), there are no obvious reasons why they develop the disease. No one is born with CML. It happens when there is an injury to the DNA of a single bone marrow cell. Few risk factors are associated with CML. Two known risk factors are:
- Exposure to very high doses of radiation
- High-dose radiation therapy (radiotherapy) used to treat other cancers such as lymphoma
However, most people treated for cancer with radiation don't develop CML. And most people with CML were never exposed to high-dose radiation. The proportion of people who are exposed to radiotherapy and develop CML is small.
Research hasn't shown any association between dental or medical x-rays and CML. You can't catch CML from someone else.
Source: Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. Reviewed by Neil P. Shah, MD, PhD.
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