Development of pulmonary arterial hypertension during oral dasatinib therapy for chronic myelogenous leukemia

We present a 36-year-old woman who had been taking oral dasatinib for 3 years for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Although adverse events such as thrombocytopenia and pleural effusion developed, she showed a major molecular response (MMR) 22 months after the initiation of oral dasatinib administration, and the therapy was thus continued. Approximately 34 months after oral dasatinib initiation, she developed severe exertional dyspnea and had to be urgently hospitalized. There was no apparent pleural effusion increase, and neither imaging nor blood test results suggested pneumonia or other infections. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) was suspected on the basis of transthoracic echocardiography. PAH was then confirmed by right heart catheterization. Though dasatinib was discontinued on the day of hospitalization, pulmonary hypertension and heart failure progressed, and she did not respond to catecholamines or PDE5 (phosphodiesterase type 5) inhibitors. On the 4(th) hospital day, she experienced cardiopulmonary arrest and died 1 week later. Cases with PAH due to oral administration of dasatinib have been reported previously. However, cases showing the rapid progression documented in our patient are rare and we advocate that PAH be considered a potential adverse event associated with dasatinib therapy.