Intermittent Exposure of Primitive Quiescent Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Cells to Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor In vitro Promotes their Elimination by Imatinib Mesylate

Abstract
Purpose: Primitive quiescent chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) cells are biologically resistant to imatinib mesylate, an inhibitor of the p210BCR-ABL kinase. The present study was designed to investigate whether either continuous or intermittent exposure of these cells to granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) in vitro can overcome this limitation to the effectiveness of imatinib mesylate therapy.