ABSTRACT
Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) has an annual incidence of approximately 1.5/105, accounting for some 5000 new patients per year in the United States. Males are slightly more frequently affected than females, but there is no significant ethnic or geographical predisposition. By comparison with some common malignancies, CML is rare and thus hardly a major general health problem. Nonetheless, the disease has served as a pacemaker in many aspects of cancer biology and therapy. CML was the first malignant disorder in which a consistent association with a chromosomal abnormality was demonstrated. One could argue that chronic phase CML would not pose a significant clinical problem, if it did not lead to blastic transformation. Thus, prevention of blast crisis could be defined as the primary therapeutic goal in CML. Starting in the late 1980s, scientists at Ciba Geigy initiated projects on the identification of compounds with inhibitory activity against protein kinases.
