The treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) achieved a great leap forward with the development of imatinib, a BCR-ABL kinase inhibitor. Alterations in the chemical structure of the inhibitor have produced agents that are more potent in vitro. In these studies, two new second-generation BCR-ABL kinase inhibitors, nilotinib and dasatinib, are compared with imatinib; these new drugs produce more complete responses and do so faster than imatinib. Both also appear to reduce the rate of progression to accelerated-phase and blast-phase disease.

The treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) achieved a great leap forward with the development of imatinib, a BCR-ABL kinase inhibitor. Alterations in the chemical structure of the inhibitor have produced agents that are more potent in vitro. In these studies, two new second-generation BCR-ABL kinase inhibitors, nilotinib and dasatinib, are compared with imatinib; these new drugs produce more complete responses and do so faster than imatinib. Both also appear to reduce the rate of progression to accelerated-phase and blast-phase disease.

Approximately 200,000 infants worldwide become infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) annually through breast-feeding. In this randomized trial involving 2369 mother–infant pairs in Malawi, the use of either maternal antiretroviral therapy or infant nevirapine through the age of 6 months was found to significantly decrease the rate of maternal transmission of HIV-1 during breast-feeding.

This double-blind, randomized trial in Botswana compared two highly active antiretroviral regimens in HIV-1−infected pregnant women (CD4+ count, ≥200) from pregnancy through 6 months post partum (when breast-feeding ceased). Both regimens were highly effective in suppressing the maternal HIV-1 viral load as well as mother-to-child transmission, with an overall transmission rate of 1.1%.