Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of New-Generation Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors versus Imatinib for Newly Diagnosed Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

Backgrounds: We performed this systematic review and meta-analysis to compare the efficacy of new-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (NG-TKIs; including dasatinib, nilotinib, bosutinib, radotinib, and ponatinib) versus imatinib for patients with newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Summary: We identified randomized controlled trials comparing the efficacy of NG-TKIs versus imatinib as the first-line treatment for CML patients by searching the PubMed, Cochrane library, and EMBASE databases. Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed study quality. A meta-analysis was performed to calculate risk ratios and 95% CIs using a fixed-effects model.Our study included 10 trials. Overall, treatment with NG-TKIs significantly improved the major molecular response and MR4.5 at all time points, and early molecular response at 3 months. Importantly, overall survival (OS) was significantly higher with the NG-TKIs at 12 months. Besides, NG-TKI-treated patients showed a significantly lower CML-related death and progression to the accelerated phase/blast crisis. Key Messages: In first-line treatment, NG-TKIs are superior to imatinib regarding OS at 12 months, and because molecular response rates were higher with the NG-TKIs at all time points, the NG-TKIs favor treatment-free remission.