Nilotinib against high dose imatinib for salvage therapy of chronic myeloid leukaemia

In 2002, the approval of the BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) imatinib mesylate for the first line treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia revolutionised therapeutic goals and led to the introduction of novel monitoring schemes and response definitions.1 In 2006–07, the introduction of second-generation TKIs dasatinib and nilotinib (developed to be more potent or more specific inhibitors for BCR-ABL1 and more tolerant of the conformational changes induced by imatinib-resistant kinase domain point mutations) for imatinib-resistant cases further increased treatment expectations.