Stopping TKI therapy can be safe, study suggests

However, TKI treatment duration and MR4 duration were both significantly (P<0.001) associated with major molecular response status at 6 months.

The odds ratio for treatment duration was 1.16 (95% CI, 1.08-1.25), which means that an additional year of imatinib treatment increases a patient’s odds of staying in major molecular response at 6 months by 16%.

The odds ratio for MR4 duration was also 1.16 (95% CI, 1.076-1.253), which means that an additional year in MR4 before TKI stop increases a patient’s odds of staying in major molecular response at 6 months by 16%.

Dr Richter noted that treatment duration and MR4 duration were highly correlated, which prevented a significant multiple model including both variables. He said the researchers will conduct further analyses to overcome the correlation between the 2 variables and determine an optimal cutoff for MR4 duration.

The team also plans to collect more data on pretreatment with interferon, as there is reason to suspect it has an influence on major molecular response duration after TKI discontinuation.

*Data in the abstract differ from data presented at the meeting.