Richard Clark, MA, MD, MRCP, FRCPath, of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, UK, presented the final results of the DESTINY trial (NCT01804985) at the 23rd Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) 2018, held in Stockholm, Sweden. This trial investigated the effect of de-escalating imatinib, nilotinib or dasatinib therapies for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients who had achieved major molecular response (MMR), but not necessarily MR4. Though responses from non-MR4 patients were not as good as those who had achieved this status, Prof. Clark emphasizes that these data provide a good rationale for de-escalating treatment across MMR patients in order to achieve treatment-free remission (TFR).
DESTINY: achieving TFR by de-escalating therapy in CML
