Timothy P Hughes, David M Ross, Junia V Melo

2014

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a myeloproliferative disease of the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC). In its natural history, CML is a tri-phasic disease, presenting predominantly in a chronic phase averaging around 5–7 years, but spanning from between a few months to over 20 years. Unless properly treated, the disease progresses through an ill-defined accelerated phase, which leads to transformation into an aggressive acute leukemia or blast crisis. The latter can be of myeloid (approximately 70% of cases) or lymphoid (30%) origin.