Transformation of the Clinical Management of CMML Patients Through In-Depth Molecular Characterization

Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) has been recently recognized as a clinically and biologically unique disease. Although this clinical distinction was solidified in 2008 by the World Health Organization, the individual properties that biologically confirm CMML to be ontologically distinct from myelodysplastic syndromes have only been discovered with recent comprehensive molecular characterization. Incorporation of next-generation platforms has allowed for the identification of mutations in most patients, which has broad applicability in the clinical management of CMML, especially in the context of diagnosis and prognosis. Future goals of research should include the development of CMML-specific disease-modifying therapies and further genetic understanding of this disease will likely become the foundation for these efforts.