Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML)

What is chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML)?

Over time, these damaged cells fill up your bone marrow, preventing it from producing all types of healthy blood cells. You might hear CML also called chronic granulocytic leukaemia (CGS).

You can find out more about AML, including symptoms, diagnosis and treatments, on the Leukaemia Care and Blood Cancer UK websites.

Facts about CML

• Around 750 people are diagnosed with CML each year in the UK.
• CML is more common in people over the age of 60.
• There were 35 stem cell transplants in the UK to treat CML in 2022.

CML and stem cell transplants

Most patients with CML are diagnosed during the chronic phase, when treatment with a type of drug called Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (TKIs) is possible. You can find out more about the different phases of CML and possible treatments on the Leukaemia Care website.

A stem cell transplant is only recommended:

• if you have CML that hasn’t responded to TKIs, or
• if you are diagnosed with ‘blast crisis’ CML and treatment gets you back to ‘chronic’ phase CML.

If you do need a transplant, it will be an allogeneic transplant – when stem cells are donated to you by someone else.