Handbook of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

This concise, clinically focused pocket handbook assembles and synthesizes the latest developments and trends in the diagnosis and treatment of CML and provides an authoritative and convenient summary of the latest progress in TKI trials, the molecular monitoring of CML responses, and the development of new therapies to overcome resistance and improve patient care. Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a rare type of leukemia (1–2 per 100,000 people) but is the most common chronic myeloproliferative neoplasm. CML remains a key model for the improved understanding of the pathophysiology of a malignancy at a molecular level; CML was the first cancer to be associated with a recurring chromosome abnormality, which generates the Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome and its associated fusion gene BCR-ABL1. The clinical outcome for patients with CML has changed dramatically in the past 15 years and this has been due to the development of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), compounds that inhibit the activity of the oncogenic BCR-ABL1 protein. A number of first-, second- and third-generation TKIs are now available for the treatment of CML, although a number of treatment challenges remain, not least the development of treatment-resistant CML. Parallel to the development of specific drugs for treating CML, major advances have been made in the field of disease monitoring and standardization of response criteria.

Timothy P Hughes, MD, FRACP, FRCPA, MBBS, is Head of the Department of Hematology at SA Pathology (RAH site) and Head of Translational Leukemia Research at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). He also holds a Professorial Chair in leukemia research at the University of Adelaide and is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellow. Professor Hughes' research is focused on studies of the dynamics of response, disease progression, and drug resistance in leukemia. He has published over 250 articles with over 15,000 citations. In 2009 he co-founded the International CML Foundation (iCMLf) with John Goldman and Jorge Cortes and was appointed Chair in 2014.

David M Ross, MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FRCPA, is a Consultant Hematologist in SA Pathology based at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide, Australia. He undertook his training in clinical and laboratory hematology in Adelaide and Cambridge, UK. He returned to Adelaide to undertake his PhD project on the subject of minimal residual disease in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) with Tim Hughes, Sue Branford, and Junia Melo. Dr Ross is a member of the disease group for CML and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) in the Australasian Leukemia and Lymphoma Group (ALLG) trials collaborative group. He coordinated the ALLG CML8 clinical trial of imatinib cessation in patients with stable molecular remission (TWISTER). He has been involved in numerous clinical trials in CML and MPN. His current research interests include treatment-free remission in CML and mutations in MPN.

Junia V Melo, MD, PhD, FRCPath, graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil in 1974, did her internal medicine and hematology training in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and earned her PhD from the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS), University of London in 1986. She did her first post-doctoral training in Adelaide, Australia, after which she was invited to re-join the RPMS as a team leader in the MRC/LRF Adult Leukemia Unit in 1990. She established her research group at Imperial College London & Hammersmith Hospital from 1990 to 2007, as Professor of Molecular Hematology. In 2008 she took up the positions of Head of Leukemia Research at the Division of Hematology, Centre for Cancer Biology, IMVS, Adelaide, and of Professor of Medicine at the University of Adelaide. Her main research is focused on the molecular biology and cell kinetics of chronic myeloid leukemia and related myeloproliferative disorders, and on identifying new molecular targets for the treatment of these diseases. Professor Melo is a member of the Editorial Boards of Blood, and Genes, Chromosomes & Cancer, of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, UK (FRCPath). She has authored over 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals.