The Biology of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a clonal myeloproliferative expansion of transformed, primitive hematopoietic progenitor cells. It involves myeloid, monocytic, erythroid, megakaryocytic, B-lymphoid, and occasionally T-lymphoid lineages.1 CML was the first human disease in which a specific abnormality of the karyotype — the Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome — could be linked to pathogenetic events of leukemogenesis.2 It was among the first neoplastic diseases in which therapy with a biologic agent (interferon) was found to suppress the leukemic clone and prolong survival.3 Although heterogeneous, CML is the best-characterized leukemia at a molecular level, and studies in recent years have helped to define further . . .