Hydroxyurea- a cost effective treatment in developing countries for Atypical Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (aCML): Case...

Atypical chronic myeloid leukaemia (aCML) is a rare chronic myeloproliferative disorder with a poor prognosis.

This case report presents two cases of male geriatric patients, both referred from primary care in rural areas and received at an urban clinic in a tertiary care hospital on separate instances. The first patient complained of low-grade fever (on/off), generalized body aches, rapid weight loss and shortness of breath for the last 2 months. The second patient arrived pale looking with symptoms of generalized body aches, dizziness and anorexia. Both patients were diagnosed to have aCML according to the World Health organization criteria.

Both the patients were from a low economic bracket and were treated with Hydroxyurea a relatively economic medicine successfully. The follow-up lasted for 12 months in both cases. No progression to acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) or relapse was observed.

This case report shows the promising results of Hydroxyurea in treating aCML and can be a cost effective alternate to other expensive treatments (allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation) and expensive medicines in lower and middle-income countries especially for resource-limited patients. These two cases show promising evidence for further studies to evaluate and conduct pharmaco-economic evaluations as well as clinical trials to compare hydroxyurea with other available alternative treatments for an affordable therapeutic option towards prevention of relapse and disease free survival after aCML.