I went to my 3-month check-up today. I was dx on 1/31/11 with 230,000 WBC. I started Tasigna (300mg twice a day) a week later and within a month my doctor told me I was in CHR. I've been doing bi-monthly blood tests. Today he told me everything, including liver enzymes, were great. In fact, I did not even ask for my WBC (I'll ask later). Typically I've been in the 5,500 range, although 2 weeks ago I was about 6,800, no biggie. I'm now moving to getting a CBC only once a month.
Looks like in 3 months we are going to check for PCR. I'm pretty excited about this and VERY relieved--strange that it's hard to notice how worked up I've been until it's suddenly all gone. Very thankful for this, the great medicine, my onc, and the support and resources here.
I asked for my original path reports, because I only saw the non-FISH and cyogentic reports stating blast counts (2% in marrow, less than 1% in blood) and just that all visual signs point to CML.
These reports say I was considered chronic phase (obvious enough from the blasts).
Cytogenics say, "The obtained karotype listed blow is abnormal and shows a male karyotype with an abnormal clone. 20 of 20 inactive phase cells have the 9.22 location [I realize this is the Ph+]. 46, XY, t(9;22) (q34;q11.2)[20].
FISH says, "...the abnormal BCR/ABL fusion product (gene) was identified in 195 of 202 nuclie (96.5%)."
I'm no expert but that all seems pretty normal to me for the original pathology, is that right?
