JPSIM Journal of Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine J Pak Soc Intern Med 2709-8729 2710-0804 Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine 10.70302/jpsim.v3i1.2207 jpsim.v3i1.2207 Original Research Comparing Imatinib and Nilotinib in the Treatment of Newly Diagnosed Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in Patients of Sandeman Provincial Hospital, Quetta, Pakistan Haque Afia dusk786@hotmail.com * Shah Syed Khalid Rahim Humaira Wahid Abdul Department of Internal Medicine, Sandeman Provincial Hospital, Quetta *Correspondence: Afia Haque (dusk786@hotmail.com) 15 03 2022 2022 3 1 36 40 01 11 2021 27 12 2021 Copyright © 2022 The Author(s) 2022 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective

To compare the effectiveness of Imatinib and Nilotinib as first-line drug in the treatment of chronic myeloid

leukemia.

 Methodology

The study was conducted at Medicine Unit III, S.P.H, Quetta, from April 2019 to 2020. Study was commenced

after taking approval from ethical committee of the institute. Newly diagnosed, treatment naïve, chronic myeloid

leukemia patients visiting Medical OPD, Emergency and Medicine ward fulfilling the inclusion criteria. Exclusion criteria

was strictly followed to control confounder and bias in the study. Patients were randomly divided into two groups, one

started on Imatinib and other Nilotinib, were followed up at 3, 6 and 11 months with CBC and molecular response by bcrabl PCR on blood or bone marrow. Informed consent was taken from all the patients prior to the commencement of the

study and thpeir information was kept confidential.

 Results

Of the 149 patients in Imatinib group, 99 showed response to treatment with 36% achieving MMR in 9 to 12

months, while 130 patients on Nilotinib showed drug effectiveness with 52% achieving MMR within 9 to 12 months,

mainly at 9 months of treatment.

 Conclusion

The study endorses that Nilotinib is better than Imatinib in the treatment of CP-CML, and hence can be used

as first line therapy.

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