Abstract
Dasatinib is one of the second generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) which is approved for the treatment of patients with chronic phase CML (CP-CML) both in the front line and in the second line setting. Pleural effusion (PE) is a unique toxicity associated with dasatinib use. Our aim was to study the incidence of pleural effusion in our cohort of patients who were treated with dasatinib for CP-CML and the safety upon TKI switch. A total of 390 patients were treated with dasatinib during their course of treatment for CP-CML. A total of 69 patients (17.6%) developed any grade of PE. About 33 (48%) patients developed CTCAE grade 2 PE, 34 (49%) grade 3 and only 1 patient developed grade 4 PE. Recurrence of PE was observed in 34 (49%) patients. While only 12 patients (17.3%) continued using dasatinib after development of PE, dasatinib was discontinued in the other 57 patients. Therapy was switched to bosutinib in 13 patients out of which 6 (46%) patients re-developed PE. While only 12.5% patients developed re-accumulation of pleural fluid in patients switched to imatinib, none of the patients switched to nilotinib re-developed PE. A change in TKI to bosutinib was associated with a 46% risk of recurrence of PE in patients who develop PE on dasatinib for the treatment of CP-CML. The incidence of recurrent PE was markedly lower in patient switched to imatinib or nilotinib.