The Cardiovascular Event Risk Associated with Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors and the Lipid Profile in Patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

Background: Second- and third-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are now available to treat chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CP-CML) in the first and second line. However, vascular adverse events (VAEs) have been reported for patients with CML treated with some TKIs. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated the cumulative incidence (CI) and cardiovascular risk for 210 patients included in the Canarian Registry of CML. Result: With a mean follow up of 6 years, 19/210 (9.1%) patients developed VAEs, all of whom presented at least one cardiovascular risk factor at diagnosis. The mean time to VAE presentation was 54 months from the start of TKI treatment. We found a statistically significant difference between the CI for nilotinib-naive vs. nilotinib-treated patients (p = 0.005), between dasatinib-naive and dasatinib-treated patients (p = 0.039), and for patients who received three lines of treatment with first-line imatinib vs. first-line imatinib (p < 0.001). From the multivariable logistic regression analyses, the Framingham risk score (FRS) and patients with three lines of TKI with first-line imatinib were the only variables with statistically significant hazard ratios for VAE development. Significant increases in HDL-C and total cholesterol may also be predictive for VAE. Conclusions: In conclusion, it is important to estimate the cardiovascular risk at the diagnosis of CML as it can help determine whether a patient is likely to develop a VAE during TKI treatment.