Dasatinib as Initial Therapy for Patients with CML

Dasatinib is a second-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor that strongly inhibits the BCR-ABL fusion protein, which is critical in the pathogenesis of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Dasatinib also inhibits other tyrosine kinases such as SRC, c-kit, and platelet-derived growth factor receptor. Although dasatinib is usually reserved for second-line CML therapy in patients who cannot tolerate or have poor responses to imatinib, investigators tested it as first-line treatment in patients with newly diagnosed, early chronic-phase CML. Patients were randomly assigned to dasatinib 100 mg once daily or 50 mg twice daily.

Forty-nine of 50 patients who received dasatinib for ≥3 months achieved complete cytogenetic responses (CCyRs) at any point durin…