From bench to bedside: bridging the gaps in best practices for real-world chronic myeloid leukemia care

Introduction Although tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) determined an improvement of responses and overall survival (OS) in chronic phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CP-CML) patients, some patients still fail the achievement of important milestones. Areas covered In this review, we focus on the need of appropriate molecular and mutational monitoring during TKI treatment with new laboratory tools and on new compounds developed to counteract the unmet clinical need in CP-CML. Expert Opinion The appropriate identification of BCR::ABL1 dependent and independent mechanisms of resistance with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) can allow to improve the therapeutic strategies and prevent the onset of a failure to treatment. New compounds have been recently approved or are still in investigational trials to improve the response in some critical forms of resistance and/or intolerance to available TKIs.