OBJECTIVES: Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is a hematologic, mostly fatal cancer. With the introduction of the targeted therapy imatinib, life expectancy for these patients dramatically increased (Garcia-Manero, 2003, Deininger, 2008). Therefore, the assessment of quality of life (QoL) is increasingly important to CML patients taking a lifelong medication. The aim of our cross-sectional pilot study was to assess CML patient QoL using the Euro Quality of Life-5 Dimensions (EQ-5D) and derive utility values for each patient. METHODS: Patients with CML in Innsbruck, Austria completed the EQ-5D either on a tablet PC or via postal survey. According to the ethic committee vote, inclusion criteria were: prior diagnosis of CML, fluency in the German language, age between 18 and 80 years, and expected survival time of at least three months. The analysis included descriptive statistics of the sample and derivation of a utility value for each patient. RESULTS: Out of the 47 questionnaires that were sent out via mail, 31 were returned. An additional 4 patients filled out the EQ-5D using a tablet PC. Nine patients were excluded due to lack of clinical data and/or failure to complete the questionnaire. Of the 26 patients in the final sample, 21 patients (81%) were in the chronic phase of disease and five (19%) had undergone allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT). Patients who had undergone a SCT had a median utility of 0.701 (range 0.197-1.0); patients in the chronic phase had a median utility of 0.887 (range 0.262-1.0).The difference between these two groups was not statistically significant (p=0.345). CONCLUSIONS: Due to limited sample size, our results should be interpreted with caution. It is important for clinicians and health policy decision makers to consider mortality reduction, but also consider the patients’ QoL and patient preferences in a standardized and systematic way to optimize patient care.