Leukemia Drug in High Dose Helps Survival

Two trials find daunorubicin benefits certain subsets of patients

By Jeffrey Perkel
HealthDay Reporter

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WEDNESDAY, Sept. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), take note: A new standard of care is emerging -- at least for those younger than 50, or between 60 and 65.

That's the take-home message of a pair of studies published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Two research teams -- the U.S.-based Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) and a team of scientists in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland -- studied almost 1,500 patients and independently reported higher rates of complete remission and overall survival in those who received high doses of the chemo drug daunorubicin, compared to those who receive the standard dose.

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Though those benefits were mostly limited to specific subsets of patients -- those younger than 50 or between 60 and 65, who had so-called "favorable" or "intermediate" genetic profiles -- they also came without any apparent increase in serious side effects.

In essence, said Dr. Hugo Fernandez of the Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Fla., the lead author on the U.S. study, the data suggest that oncologists have nothing to lose in using the high-dose regimen, 90 mg per square meter of body surface area compared to a standard 45 mg per square meter. That's because AML must be treated aggressively, yet it can take days for genetic analyses to come back from the lab.

"The bottom line is survival," Fernandez said. "We achieved it without great cost to the patients, and without any new fancy drugs, either. This wasn't reinventing the wheel; it was using the drugs optimally. We finally got the right dose."

In an editorial accompanying the two studies, Drs. Herve Dombret and Claude Gardin from Paris, wrote, "Do we have a new standard of care in AML? The lack of an increase in toxic effects and the benefit in overall survival strongly argue for incorporating high-dose daunorubicin into the initial treatment of younger patients with AML, at least for those with favorable- and intermediate-risk cytogenetic profiles, unless an increased rate of toxic effects is feared when high-dose daunorubicin is used in association with new agents, such as FLT3 inhibitors, currently in ongoing trials."

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