Impact of Poor Adherence
in CML Therapy

It is important to help ensure that patients are taking their medication correctly, ie, the right dose at the right time, on the right day, in the right way.¹

A prospective, multicenter, observational study of adherence in patients with CML provides important insights to the scope of the problem and its clinical impact.² This study evaluated adherence in 169 patients receiving oral CML treatment with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). The median time from diagnosis was 41.9 months and more than 98% were in chronic phase.²

Key findings

Physicians-and patients-often overestimate adherence to oral TKI treatment

Although physicians as well as patients estimated that patient adherence to treatment was close to 95%, few patients were perfectly adherent. Across a 90-day study, 71% of patients missed at least 1 dose of their TKI, while the most nonadherent patients took as little as 29% of their prescribed doses. Furthermore, 15% of patients took more than their prescribed doses (up to 202% of the prescribed dose). Only 14% of patients were perfectly adherent (Figure).²

Missed doses can lead to a suboptimal response

On average, the more patients missed their prescribed dose, the more likely they were to have a suboptimal response (Figure).^-2

Learn more on the factors leading to low adherence

strategies to enhance patient adherence