Validation of the Hasford score in a demographic study in chronic granulocytic leukaemia

Abstract

Chronic granulocytic leukaemia (CGL) is a rare disease. For most patients the only curative treatment (an allogeneic stem cell transplant) is not available. Survival varies between a few months to many years from diagnosis, and an accurate prediction of the duration of survival could help patients and clinicians make informed decisions about the many treatment options. In 1984, the Sokal score was introduced to stratify patients into risk groups. Recently, a new prognostic scoring system was proposed by Hasford and co-workers for interferon treated patients. We have analysed survival on an unselected population based cohort of patients using both the Hasford and the Sokal scores. In the group overall, neither score was predictive of survival, but in younger patients (< 60 years) treated with interferon, the Hasford score was highly predictive of survival, dividing patients into groups with a five year survival of 77% (45 patients) v 33% (six patients) v 14% (31 patients) (p = 0.01).