preliminary study on the effect of two therapeutic procedures on the expression of BCR-ABL gene in CML patients

ABSTRACT

Chronic myelogensis leukemia [CML] is a chronic myeloproliferative disorder resulting from a specific mutation in a pluripotent stem cell. The association of Philadelphia chromosome with this disorder was described in 1973. Subsequently, the BCR-ABL fusion gene and its product which is a tyrosin kinase inhibiting apoptosis were introduced. The treatment of choice for these patients is BMT as well as the new molecular treatment of imatinib mesylate. The present study was designed in order to compare the rate of expression of the BCR-ABL gene in patients who had undergone treatment by bone marrow transplantation with those treated by imatimib. Expression of BCR-ABL gene was measured in 34 patients 17 patients were treated with BMT and 17 with imatinib mesylate using quantitative PCR on a light cycler instrument. The results obtained in this preliminary study demonstrates that rate of gene expression patients treated with imatinib mesylate for more than 8 month was similar to that found in patients treated with 8 BMT who were in relatively stable conditions. This finding may be an indication that imatinib mesylate as a molecular inhibitor can have the same effect as BMT but with less adverse effects. Clearly definite conclusions require more extensive studies on larger number of patients