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Imatinib-induced gastric antral vascular ectasia in three patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia

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Abstract

Imatinib is generally well tolerated, but gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE) remains a rare but significant complication of imatinib therapy. Whilst this complication has been described in other disease settings, only one other case of GAVE has been reported in a chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) patient receiving imatinib. Herein, we present three CML patients with GAVE complicating imatinib therapy. In all cases, GAVE resolved only with cessation of imatinib. This confirms a causal relationship between GAVE and imatinib. GAVE should be considered as a possible cause of anaemia and upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients receiving imatinib therapy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Haematology, St Vincent’s Hospital, 41 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy, VIC, 3065, Australia

    Jeremy Ong, Robin Filshie & Harshal Nandurkar

  2. Division of Haematology, SA Pathology, Adelaide, Australia

    David Yeung & Timothy P. Hughes

  3. University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Timothy P. Hughes

  4. South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, South Australia, Australia

    Timothy P. Hughes

Authors
  1. Jeremy Ong
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  2. David Yeung
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  3. Robin Filshie
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  4. Timothy P. Hughes
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  5. Harshal Nandurkar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeremy Ong.

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Conflict of interest

D.Y. received research funding from Novartis and BMS and received honoraria from and participated in advisory boards of Novartis and BMS. T.H. received research funding from Ariad, CSL, Novartis and BMS and received honoraria from and participated in advisory boards of Ariad, Pfizer, Novartis and BMS. The remaining authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Ong, J., Yeung, D., Filshie, R. et al. Imatinib-induced gastric antral vascular ectasia in three patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia. Int J Hematol 102, 639–642 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12185-015-1824-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12185-015-1824-y

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