Chronic Myeloid Leukemia - An Overview

CML is a myeloproliferative disorder characterized by a specific cytogenetic abnormality, the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph), a balanced translocation, involving a fusion of the Abelson oncogene (ABL) from chromosome 9q34 with the breakpoint cluster region (BCR) on chromosome 22q11. The molecular consequence of this translocation is the generation of a BCR-ABL fusion oncogene, which translates into Bcr-Abl oncoprotein with increased tyrosine kinase activity. (1)