Personalized medicine for acute myelogenous leukemia—at the entrance gate

Posted by rob on April 23, 2011 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article

AbstractWith the advent of molecularly targeted therapies in the oncology clinic, previously fatal blood cancers have now become chronic diseases. Imatinib, a small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that targets the BCR?ABL fusion protein, dramatically extends survival for patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia and has opened the flood gates for modern “personalized cancer medicine”. Rituximab, a monoclonal antibody with affinity for the CD20 antigen of B?lymphocytes, in an analogous fashion has revolutionized treatment for patients with B?cell lymphomas. Does this paradigm, a rather commonplace approach for the treatment of hematologic malignancies, apply also to acute myelogenous leukemia (AML)? This is an exciting time to be involved in AML research, and an explosion of n…
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