What treatment options are available for CMML?
Options for treating CMML range from observing a patient and doing nothing, and just sort of seeing how they're doing, versus chemotherapies and bone marrow transplants on the other end of the spectrum. The mainstay of therapy for CMML is often these drugs called hypomethylating agents.
Medications like decitabine or azacitidine that may help some patients but clearly are not as effective as in other diseases.
Other medications may help lower the white blood cell count, like hydroxyurea, and then there's medications to help improve hemoglobin levels like erythropoietin stimulating agents.
There's also medications called Jak inhibitors, which are drugs that really affect the pathways that are overactive in CMML. That can help patients, particularly who have a big spleen or who have a lot of symptoms as well.
And the ultimate treatment, the only curative option is a bone marrow transplant. So that is an intense modality that oftentimes is very risky, but can potentially create cures for many patients who have particularly high risk CMML.
HealthTree • May 21, 2026