Comparison of Salvage Intensive Chemotherapy Versus Venetoclax Combined Regimen in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)

• Published in: Blood 2021-11, Vol.138 (Supplement 1), p.2332-2332
• Main Authors: Park, Silvia, Kim, Hee-Je, Cho, Byung Sik, Kim, Yoo-Jin, Min, Gi June, Park, Sung-Soo, Yahng, Seung-Ah, Jeon, Young-Woo, Shin, Seung-Hwan, Yoon, Jae-Ho, Lee, Sung-Eun, Eom, Ki-Seong, Lee, Seok, Min, Chang-Ki, Cho, Seok-Goo, Lee, Jong Wook
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0006-4971; 1528-0020
• DOI: 10.1182/blood-2021-152282

▪ Introduction: Venetoclax (VEN) combined regimen received FDA approval for newly diagnosed elderly or unfit acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. Recently, with increasing use as off-label for relapsed or refractory setting in real practice, the evidence that the regimen is potentially effective in R/R AML is emerging. However, there is no answer to the question how VEN combined treatment compares to intensive chemotherapy (IC) in R/R AML when the patients were intended to be cured with bridging to stem cell transplantation (SCT) after either of these treatments. Methods: Adult AML patients (age ≥18 years) who were refractory to or relapsed after anthracycline plus cytarabine induction were subjected to this analysis. As a group of interest, R/R AML patients who received VEN combined regimen were screened first, and we found a total of 54 corresponding patients between Feb 2020 and Jan 2021. As a comparison, we searched historical controls who were treated with salvage IC during the past two years, revealing a total of 89 patients between Jan 2018 and Jan 2020. Patients analyzed here received VEN-combination or IC as their first or second-line salvage therapy. Results: Overall, the median age was 49 years (range, 18 to 72), and the patients of first line salvage (n=125, 87.4%) were more included. When comparing IC and VEN-combination groups, there were no differences in age, sex, ELN risk groups, cytogenetics, disease type or mutation status. However, more patients in VEN-combination group were in their second line salvage setting (IC vs VEN-combination; 5.6% vs 24.1%, p