Concurrent intensive chemotherapy and imatinib before and after stem cell transplantation in newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Final results of the CSTIBES02 trial

These results confirm that imatinib is an effective first-line treatment for adult Ph(+) ALL when given concurrently with chemotherapy, making stem cell transplantation feasible in a high proportion of patients. However, post-transplantation imatinib administration was limited, mainly because of transplantation-derived complications rather than drug-specific toxicity.