Dr. Richard Silver Discusses the High Cost of Drugs in CML

Richard T. Silver, MD, Professor of Medicine, Director, Leukemia and Myleoproliferative Center, New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, comments on the cost of drugs to treat chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

Overall, Silver believes that the cost of drugs to treat CML is too high. Additionally, in the majority of patients, he remains unconvinced that other agents work as well as imatinib, which will soon be off patent.

To select the most appropriate treatment, it remains important for a physician to discuss costs as well as risk factors with a patient. Silver notes that in general, he prescribes imatinib to approximately two-thirds of his patients with CML and will continue to do so, specifically as a generic version becomes available.