CHICAGO, June 2 -- Almost all patients treated off-label with dasatinib(Drug information on dasatinib) (Sprycel) for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) had a complete cytogenetic response within a year of beginning therapy, researchers reported here.
"Patients taking dasatinib achieve complete cytogenetic response - absence of the mutated protein that drives this disease - more rapidly than we've observed historically using the current front-line therapy. Side effects are very manageable," said Ehab L. Atallah, M.D., a fellow in oncology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston.
He noted that dasatinib, which is approved for treatment of patients who are unresponsive or resistant to treatment with imatinib(Drug information on imatinib) (Gleevec), was able to achieve a response in 40% of those difficult to treat patients.
"Our hypothesis was that treating with dasatinib first would produce an earlier response, which might translate to a better overall survival," Dr. Atallah said at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting. "We haven't proved that here, but these early results are encouraging."
