Dasatinib and nilotinib are recommended as options for treating only chronic- or accelerated-phase Philadelphia-chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukaemia in adults, if:
they cannot have imatinib, or their disease is imatinib-resistant and
the companies provide the drugs with the discounts agreed in the relevant patient access schemes.
High-dose imatinib (that is, 600 mg in the chronic phase or 800 mg in the accelerated and blast-crisis phases) is not recommended for treating Philadelphia-chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukaemia in adults whose disease is imatinib-resistant.
This guidance is not intended to affect the position of patients whose treatment with imatinib or dasatinib was started within the NHS before this guidance was published. Treatment of those patients may continue without change to whatever funding arrangements were in place for them before this guidance was published until they and their NHS clinician consider it appropriate to stop.