Yang X, Bai Y, Shi M, et al. - Researchers intended to validate the recently developed EUTOS long-term survival (ELTS) score with respect to its clinical efficacy in a real-world setting. For this purpose, they undertook a retrospective analysis including 479 chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients managed with frontline imatinib. They assessed the ELTS score on the end-points such as complete cytogenetic response (CCyR), progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS) and CML-associated mortality. For the routine evaluation indicators such as CCyR, PFS and OS, the ELTS scoring system could effectively detect the corresponding risk groups, similarly with the outcomes afforded by prior scoring systems. As far as the CML-related death was concerned, a high-risk group carrying a significantly higher risk of dying of CML could be precisely identified by the ELTS score, and in the ELTS high-, intermediate-, and low-risk groups, the 5-year cumulative incidence occurred was estimated to be 11%, 5%, and 2%, respectively. The performance of the ELTS score was better than that of the Sokal, Hasford, and EUTOS scores, without statistical variation among distinct risk groups. Overall, the prognosis of imatinib-treated CML patients could be effectively predicted by the ELTS score in real-life settings.