Chronic myelogenous leukemia is cancer that starts inside bone marrow, the soft tissue inside bones that helps form blood cells. The cancer grows from cells that produce white blood cells.

See also:

• Acute myeloid leukemia (AML)
• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)
• Leukemia

CML; Chronic granulocytic leukemia; Leukemia - chronic granulocytic (CML)

CML most often occurs in middle-aged adults and in children. The disease affects 1 to 2 people per 100,000 and makes up 7 - 20% cases of leukemia.

It is usually associated with a chromosome abnormality called the Philadelphia chromosome.

Radiation increases the risk of developing CML. Exposure may occur from:

• High-dose radiation treatments used in the past to treat thyroid cancer or Hodgkin’s lymphoma
• Nuclear disaster

It takes many years to develop leukemia from this cause. However, most people treated for cancer with radiation do not go on to develop leukemia, and most patients with CML have not been exposed to radiation.

Images

Antibodies

Auer rods

Chronic myelocytic leukemia - microscopic view

Chronic myelocytic leukemia

Bone marrow aspiration

Chronic myelocytic leukemia

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Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) Symptoms

Review Date: 03/02/2010
Reviewed By: David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine; Yi-Bin Chen, MD, Leukemia/Bone Marrow Transplant Program, Massachusetts General Hospital. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.

A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)