Although
imatinib is an effective treatment for
chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and nearly all patients treated with
imatinib attain some form of remission,
imatinib does not completely eliminate
leukemia. Moreover, if the
imatinib treatment is stopped, most patients eventually relapse (Cortes et al. in Clin.
Cancer Res. 11:3425-3432, 2005). In Kim et al. (PLoS Comput. Biol. 4(6):e1000095, 2008), the authors presented a mathematical model for the dynamics of CML under
imatinib treatment that incorporates the anti-
leukemia immune response. We use the mathematical model in Kim et al. (PLoS Comput. Biol. 4(6):e1000095, 2008) to study and numerically simulate strategic treatment interruptions as a potential therapeutic strategy for CML patients. We present the results of numerous simulated treatment programs in which
imatinib treatment is temporarily stopped to stimulate and leverage the anti-
leukemia immune response to combat CML. The simulations presented in this paper imply that treatment programs that involve strategic treatment interruptions may prevent
leukemia from relapsing and may prevent remission for significantly longer than continuous
imatinib treatment. Moreover, in many cases, strategic treatment interruptions may completely eliminate leukemic cells from the body. Thus, strategic treatment interruptions may be a feasible clinical approach to enhancing the effects of
imatinib treatment for CML. We study the effects of both the timing and the duration of the treatment interruption on the results of the treatment. We also present a sensitivity analysis of the results to the parameters in the mathematical model.