Outcome of acute myeloid leukaemia in adults: a retrospective analysis.

Background: There are little data from India on the management of acute myeloid leukaemia. With better understanding of the biology of the disease, and routine use of high-dose cytarabine as post-remission therapy with or without haematopoietic blood stem cell transplantation (HSCT), the results have improved in the past two decades. We analysed our results in a cohort of recently treated patients.

Methods: A total of 166 newly diagnosed patients with AML (excluding acute promyelocytic leukaemia), 15-60 years of age were treated with daunorubicin (60 mg/m2/day x3 days) or idarubicin (12 mg/m2/day x3 days) with cytarabine (100 mg/m2/day continuous i.v. infusion x7 days) induction chemotherapy. Post-remission therapy included 2 cycles of high-dose cytarabine (15-18 g/m2) followed by monthly cycles of outpatient maintenance chemotherapy x4 cycles, consisting of daunorubicin (45 mg/m2 i.v. x1 day and cytarabine 100 mg/ m2 s.c. twice daily x5 days). Six patients in remission received sibling donor allogeneic HSCT.

Results: Morphological complete remission was achieved in 69.9% of the patients. Resistant disease after induction chemotherapy was seen in 14.6% and early mortality occurred in 16%. Relapse-free survival and event-free survival at a median of 36 months was 34% and 22%, respectively. Relapse occurred in 43.9%. The median duration of remission was 12 months.

Conclusions: Our results conform to the published literature from larger cooperative studies from the West. Currently available cytotoxic drugs are unlikely to improve the results any further.