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

Chronic granulocytic leukaemia (CGL) is a rare disease. For most patients t he only curative treatment (an allogeneic stem cell transplant) is not avai lable. Survival varies between a few months to many years from diagnosis, a nd an accurate prediction of the duration of survival could help patients a nd 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-w orkers for interferon treated patients. We have analysed survival on an uns elected population based cohort of patients using both the Hasford and the Sokal scores. In the group overall, neither score was predictive of surviva l, but in younger patients (< 60 years) treated with interferon, the Hasfor d score was highly predictive of survival, dividing patients into groups wi th a five year survival of 77% (45 patients) v 33% (six patients) v 14% (31 patients) (p = 0.01).