Statistics and outlook for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML)
This page is about statistics and what they can tell us about the outlook for people with chronic myeloid leukaemia. There is information about
Statistics and outlook for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML)
Outlook means your chances of getting better. Your doctor may call this your prognosis. The outcome of treatment for chronic leukaemia depends on a number of different factors. This includes the type of chronic leukaemia you have, how advanced it is when it is diagnosed and how well it responds to the latest treatments, such as imatinib (Glivec).
We have quite detailed information about the likely outcome of CML. The statistics we use are taken from a variety of sources, including the opinions and experience of the experts who check every section of CancerHelp UK. They are intended as a general guide only. For the more complete picture in your case, you’d have to speak to your own specialist.
We include statistics because people ask for them, but not everyone wishes to read this type of information. Remember you don't have to read this information, you can always come back to it.
How reliable are cancer statistics?
No statistics can tell you what will happen to you. The statistics cannot tell you about the different treatments people may have had, or how that treatment may have affected their prognosis. There are many individual factors that will affect your treatment and your outlook.
You can view and print the quick guides for all the pages in the Treating CML cancer section.
Following on this page, is some information about the survival rates of the different types of chronic leukaemia. We have included it because many people have asked us for this. But not everyone who is diagnosed with a cancer wishes to read this type of information. If you are not sure whether you want to know at the moment or not, then perhaps you might like to skip this page for now. You can always come back to it.
Please note: there are no national statistics available for different stages of cancer or treatments that people may have received. The statistics we present here are pulled together from a variety of different sources, including the opinions and experience of the experts that check each section of CancerHelp UK. We provide statistics because people ask us for them. But they are only intended as a general guide and cannot be regarded as any more than that.
There is a section explaining more about the different types of cancer statistics in the CancerHelp UK section on cancer statistics. Unless you are very familiar with medical statistics, you may find it helpful to read this before you read the information below.
Remember - statistics are averages based on large numbers of patients. They cannot predict exactly what will happen to you. No two patients are exactly alike and response to treatment also varies from one person to another.
You should feel free to ask your doctor about your prognosis, but not even your doctor can tell you for sure what will happen. You may hear your doctor use the term '5 year survival'. It does not mean you will only live 5 years. It relates to the proportion of people in research studies who were still alive 5 years after diagnosis. Doctors follow what happens to people for at least 5 years after treatment in any research study. This is so that they can compare the results of different research studies.
The outcome of treatment for chronic leukaemia depends on a number of different factors. This includes the type of leukaemia you have, how advanced it is when it is diagnosed and how well it responds to chemotherapy treatment. You will need to talk this through with your own specialist.
Not all types of chronic leukaemia are curable. But they are often slowly developing conditions that are kept under control for many years with treatment. You may hear these periods called 'remission'.
Remission is when the disease is not active - you don't have symptoms and it doesn't show up in your blood samples. It can be possible to achieve a second remission with more chemotherapy after a chronic leukaemia has relapsed.
The outcome for chronic myeloid leukaemia depends on the stage you have when you are diagnosed. But survival time does vary a great deal from person to person.
The only certain way to try and cure CML remains intensive treatment with bone marrow or stem cell transplant. More than half of the people who have this type of treatment while their CML is still in chronic phase are cured. Work has been going on to try to find out who needs this intensive treatment and who doesn't. A measure that has been developed is called the Sokal Index. This looks at your age, spleen size, platelet count and the number of leukaemia cells in your blood sample to put you into one of 3 groups - low, intermediate or high risk. If you are high risk, your specialist is more likely to suggest intensive treatment.
To work out cancer statistics on the success of treatments, we need to look back at how people have done in the past. So when new treatments come out, the results will not show up in the statistics for quite a while. Since the introduction of imatinib (Glivec) - a biological therapy drug, the outlook has improved a great deal for most people who cannot have intensive treatment for CML. With imatinib, nearly 9 out of 10 people live for at least 5 years. We haven’t been using Glivec long enough to know how long it will keep CML under control. Some scientists have estimated, using computer models and the data from large trials. They believe that Glivec may keep CML under control for 19 years or more - in those who respond to this type of treatment.
Unfortunately, some people do not respond to Glivec. Others have CML that becomes resistant to it over time. For these people, there are other new biological therapies available, such as dasatinib or nilotinib. These are also looking promising.
Do remember that CML is very varied in how it behaves. It can develop very slowly in some people and more quickly in others. You will need to talk to your own doctor over a period of time to find out more about how it is behaving in your case.
CML that has entered the aggressive blast phase is more difficult to manage. But your treatment may get it back into chronic phase, where it is not so difficult to keep it under control. If CML in blast phase does not respond to treatment, unfortunately you are more likely to have months, rather than years.
The reliablility of cancer statistics
No statistics can tell you what will happen to you. Your cancer is unique. The same type of cancer can grow at different rates in different people for example.
The statistics are not detailed enough to tell you about the different treatments people may have had. And how that treatment may have affected their prognosis. There are many individual factors that will determine your treatment and prognosis.
People treated at centres where clinical trials are taking place tend to do better. This is almost certainly because that is where the most expertise is concentrated - research is more likely to take place in specialist centres. For those in the trials, it may be partly to do with having a closer eye kept on them by their doctors than they might if not in a trial - more scans and blood tests for example. But it might also be something to do with morale. You may feel more positive if you are taking part in a trial because it is more obvious to you that something is being done to help you. There is more about understanding clinical trials in CancerHelp UK. To search our clinical trials database for trials that are recruiting for chronic leukaemia, pick 'leukaemia: chronic' from the drop down menu of cancer types.
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