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You may be offered:
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy uses special drugs to kill cancer cells.
Your treatment will depend on the phase of your disease. The phases are chronic phase, accelerated phase and blast phase. Most CML patients begin their treatment with a drug called Hydroxyurea, which is given in tablet form. Alpha Interferon may be used on its own or together with other drugs. Research shows that it is more effective than Hydroxyurea at treating CML. (This may be because it is better at allowing normal, healthy bone marrow cells to regrow.)
We don't think any current chemotherapy treatments can cure CML - but work is going on all the time to develop and test new treatments. There are other novel agents available as part of clinical trials.
Allogenic (donor) bone marrow transplant
At the moment, a donor transplant offers the only chance of complete cure for CML.
This means taking healthy bone marrow cells from another person (a donor) and giving them to the patient.
The cells are normally taken from a close relative such as a brother or sister whose bone marrow is very like the patient's. If there is no close relative, doctors may be able to find another donor from a bone marrow register.
Bone marrow transplants aren't suitable - or possible - for all CML patients. For a transplant to go ahead, the donor must be a close match. The patient also needs to be fit enough to get through this aggressive type of treatment.
Your doctors will tell you about the risks, benefits and side effects of your options. You will need to agree to the treatment before it can start. This is called giving your consent. Don't be afraid to ask questions if there is anything you don't understand.
For more information about treatments, go to our cancer treatments section.
