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Facts to Know While Undergoing Therapy for CML

Cancer Living with Cancer

Doctor and Patient Teamwork: Management of CML

Summary & Participants

For patients with chronic myeloid leukemia, establishing a close relationship with their doctor is very important. With new treatment options available patients and doctors need to be able to communicate freely and be aware of the latest research developments. Find out how CML patients and the doctors who treat them, can work together to treat this disease.

Medically Reviewed On: June 30, 2008

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Chronic myeloid leukemia or CML is a form of cancer that many patients initially don't even know they have. Often found during a routine blood test, CML is a disease in which too many white blood cells are made in the bone marrow. For a patient with CML, establishing a close relationship with their doctor is very important. Right from the start, a patient should make sure they understand all they can about the disease.

RICHARD STONE, MD: There are three major phases of CML. There is the chronic phase, which is the way most people present. There is the accelerated phase, which occurs when patients get a bit sicker. There is the blast crisis phase which is a fairly advanced phase. They need to know what phase they're in. They should know their blood counts, their chromosome status. They should be able to communicate to the doctor everything about how they feel.

JUDY OREM: I think patients and doctors would work better together if the patients understand what they have, they know what questions to ask, if they form a relationship with their doctor that is such that says I want to know these things when I ask them. I would like these answers.

ANNOUNCER: The first answer many patients want, concerns their treatment options. It's a decision they should discuss thoroughly with their doctor. The choices for CML range from using drugs or radiation to kill cancerous cells, to bone marrow transplants, currently the only known cure.

RICHARD STONE, MD: Patients and physicians should decide upon a course of treatment after careful discussion of all the treatment options. Every patient has a different style for decision-making. Some patients like to leave everything in the hands of their physician. Others want to take control and want to read the literature themselves and be an equal partner with their physician. Every single style is acceptable and has to be done. The exact means of deciding on the treatment options really depend on the patient him or herself.

STEPHEN O'BRIEN, MD, PhD: I think doctors should be aware of the latest data. They should trawl the Internet as their patients will do. Keep up to date with meetings and literature so that they have really very accurate and up-to-date information, particularly on drug therapy, and also on newer forms of bone marrow transplantation because it's a constantly shifting field.

ANNOUNCER: Some patients with CML feel they must take the lead in treating their own disease.

JUDY OREM: When you go to see your doctor you really have to be your own advocate. Make sure that the questions, the things you think are important get covered by your doctor. I hear patients say "well whatever my doctor wants I'll do" and I'm going, you need to know what you need.

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