Very long survival in complete cytogenetic remission in an adolescent with lymphoid blast crisis of chronic myeloid leukemia after treatment with intensive ALL-directed chemotherapy combined with continuous imatinib

An 11-year-old male was diagnosed with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in 1998 and received therapy with interferon-2b and low-dose cytarabine. In 6 years, he progressed to lymphoid blast crisis and received induction chemotherapy with prednisolone, vincristine, daunorubicin, and l-asparaginase concomitantly with imatinib 400mg/day, and continuation with vincristine + prednisolone, cytarabine + etoposide, vincristine + l-asparaginase, cyclophosphamide + etoposide, and 6-mercaptopurine + methotrexate. Complete molecular response (MR) was achieved and therapy was continued with imatinib 800 mg/day. He relapsed to chronic-phase CML after interruption of imatinib and regained MR after its restart. The patient is alive 17.5 years after CML diagnosis and 11.5 years after lymphoid blast crisis.