MR(4.5) is a new molecular predictor of long-term outcome, is reached by a majority of patients treated with imatinib, and is achieved more quickly with optimized high-dose imatinib, which may provide an improved therapeutic basis for treatment discontinuation in CML.

Since the advent of tyrosine kinase inhibitors, the impact of age on outcome of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients has changed. We therefore analyzed patients from the randomized CML study IV to investigate disease manifestations and outcome in different age groups. One thousand five hundred twenty-four patients with BCR-ABL-positive chronic phase CML were divided into four age groups: (1) 16–29 years, n = 120; (2) 30–44 years, n = 383; (3) 45–59 years, n = 495; and (4) ≥60 years, n = 526. Group 1 (adolescents and young adults (AYAs)) presented with more aggressive disease features (larger spleen size, more frequent symptoms of organomegaly, higher white blood count, higher percentage of peripheral blasts and lower hemoglobin levels) than the other age groups. In addition, a higher rate of patients with BCR-ABL transcript levels >10 % on the international scale (IS) at 3 months was observed. After a median observation time of 67.5 months, no inferior survival and no differences in cytogenetic and molecular remissions or progression rates were observed. We conclude that AYAs show more aggressive features and poor prognostic indicators possibly indicating differences in disease biology. This, however, does not affect outcome.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00277-013-1937-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Using horizontal agarose thin layer gel electrophoresis, 35 allozyme loci were screened in 233 brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) from 11 populations in southwest Germany across the RhenanianDanubian watershed. Polymorphism was found at 10 loci, with stocked populations exhibiting significantly increased polymorphism compared with unmanaged stocks (P= 0.2 19 vs. P= 0.132). Standard genetic distances between populations from different brooks averaged at D =0.01. Of the total gene diversity of GST =0.198, only a negligible amount partitioned between Rhenanian and Danubian drainages (GGT= 0.0 10). One biallelic locus, LDH5*, indicated river-specific allele frequencies, with the allele LDH-5 *105 being markedly more frequent within the Danubian drainage system. In contrast, LDH-5 *100 was close to fixation in the Rhenanian populations. This locus suggests a phylogeographical relationship of Danubian trout from southwest Germany with brown trout from southeastern Europe rather than with conspecifics of adjacent Rhenanian origin.