Phase III trial findings support the use of a liposome-encapsulated formulation of cytarabine and daunorubicin in older patients with a new diagnosis of high-risk secondary acute myeloid leukemia.

Consolidation therapy should be given at a dose of 29 mg/m 2 for daunorubicin (65 mg/m 2 for cytarabine) over 90 minutes on days 1 and 3.

Phase III trial findings support the use of a liposome-encapsulated formulation of cytarabine and daunorubicin in older patients with a new diagnosis of high-risk secondary acute myeloid leukemia.

Adding lomustine to standard chemotherapy with idarubicin and cytarabine significantly improves survival in fit older patients with favorable- or intermediate-risk acute myeloid leukemia, phase III trial data show.

Among them, venetoclax has shown some efficacy as a single-agent treatment and also in combination with low-dose cytarabine [5].

They received low-intensity induction chemotherapy with mini-hyper-CVD, comprising cyclophosphamide, dexamethasone, vincristine, methotrexate, and cytarabine, with administration of inotuzumab ozogamicin on the third day of the first four cycles, at 1.3–1.8 mg/m 2 in cycle 1 and 1.0–1.3 mg/m 2 in subsequent cycles.

All study participants had received induction therapy with R-DHAP (rituximab, dexamethasone, cytarabine, and platinum derivative), achieving either complete remission or a partial response (≥75% reduction in tumor mass) before receiving conditioning with R-BEAM (rituximab, carmustine, etoposide, cytarabine, and melphalan) and undergoing HSCT.

The antibody–drug conjugate may now be given to newly diagnosed patients alongside daunorubicin and cytarabine chemotherapy, following results of the ALFA-0701 phase III trial of patients aged 50–70 years.

The drug is intended for adult patients with a new diagnosis of FLT3 mutation-positive acute myeloid leukemia, to be given alongside standard daunorubicin and cytarabine induction and high-dose cytarabine consolidation chemotherapy.

All participants in the CALGB 10603 (RATIFY) trial, conducted at 225 sites in 17 countries, received standard chemotherapy (induction therapy with daunorubicin and cytarabine and consolidation therapy with high-dose cytarabine).

The research, published in Leukemia , compared the survival of patients randomly assigned to receive imatinib 400 mg/day given alone (n=400), with the same imatinib dose used after interferon failure (n=128), or used alongside interferon (n=430) or cytarabine (n=158).

Midostaurin should be used alongside standard cytarabine and daunorubicin induction therapy and cytarabine consolidation.

The phase III International Randomized Study of Interferon and STI571 (IRIS) randomly assigned 1106 patients with newly diagnosed CML in the chronic phase to receive either the tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib (n=553) or interferon alfa plus cytarabine (n=553).

Sorafenib has also shown promising efficacy in combination with hypomethylating agents (azacitidine) [14], low-dose homoharringtonine [15], or low-dose cytarabine [16] in primary refractory FLT3 -ITD + AML.

“These outcomes contrast sharply with those in patients with AML who receive standard anthracycline-based and cytarabine-based induction chemotherapy, in whom the presence of TP53 mutations is associated with a dismal prognosis, with initial response rates of only 20 to 30%,” say Timothy Ley (Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri, USA) and fellow investigators.