Treatment of Newly Diagnosed AML

The general principles of therapy for children and adolescents with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are discussed below, followed by a more specific discussion of the treatment of children with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) and Down syndrome.

Overall survival (OS) rates have improved over the past three decades for children with AML, with 5-year survival rates now in the 55% to 65% range.[1,2,3,4,5] Overall remission-induction rates are approximately 85% to 90%, and event-free survival (EFS) rates from the time of diagnosis are in the 45% to 55% range.[2,3,4,5] There is, however, a wide range in outcome for different biological subtypes of AML (refer to the Cytogenetic Evaluation and Molecular Abnormalities section of this summary for more information); after taking specific biological factors of their leukemia into account, the predicted outcome for any individual patient may be much better or much worse than the overall outcome for the general population of children with AML.

Induction Chemotherapy

Because of the intensity of therapy used to treat children with AML, patients should have their care coordinated by specialists in pediatric oncology, and should be treated in cancer centers or hospitals with the necessary supportive care facilities (e.g., to administer specialized blood products; to manage infectious complications; to provide pediatric intensive care; and to provide emotional and developmental support).

Contemporary pediatric AML protocols result in 85% to 90% complete remission rates.[5] Of those patients who do not go into remission, about one-half have resistant leukemia and one-half die from the complications of the disease or its treatment. To achieve a complete remission (CR), inducing profound bone marrow aplasia (with the exception of the M3 APL subtype) is usually necessary. Because induction chemotherapy produces severe myelosuppression, morbidity and mortality from infection or hemorrhage during the induction period may be significant.

The two most effective drugs used to induce remission in children with AML are cytarabine and an anthracycline. Commonly used pediatric induction therapy regimens use cytarabine and an anthracycline in combination with other agents such as etoposide and/or thioguanine.[3,6,7] The United Kingdom Medical Research Council (MRC) 10 Trial compared induction with cytarabine, daunorubicin, and etoposide (ADE) versus cytarabine and daunorubicin administered with thioguanine (DAT); the results showed no difference between the thioguanine and etoposide arms in remission rate or disease-free survival.[8]

The anthracycline that has been most used in induction regimens for children with AML is daunorubicin,[3,6,7] though idarubicin and the anthracenedione mitoxantrone have also been used.[9,10] Randomized trials have attempted to determine whether any other anthracycline or anthracenedione is superior to daunorubicin as a component of induction therapy for children with AML. The German Berlin-Frankfurt-Munster (BFM) Group AML-BFM 93 study evaluated cytarabine plus etoposide with either daunorubicin or idarubicin (ADE or AIE) and observed similar EFS and OS for both induction treatments.[7,9] The MRC-LEUK-AML12 clinical trial studied induction with cytarabine, mitoxantrone, and etoposide (MAE) in children and adults with AML compared to a similar regimen using daunorubicin (ADE).[10,11] For all patients, MAE showed a reduction in relapse risk, but the increased rate of treatment-related mortality observed for patients receiving MAE led to no significant difference in disease-free survival or OS in comparison to ADE.[11] Similar results were noted when analyses were restricted to pediatric patients.[10] In the absence of convincing data that another anthracycline or mitoxantrone produces superior outcome to daunorubicin when given at an equitoxic dose, daunorubicin remains the anthracycline most commonly used during induction therapy for children with AML in the United States.

The intensity of induction therapy influences the overall outcome of therapy. The CCG-2891 study demonstrated that intensively timed induction therapy (4-day treatment courses separated by only 6 days) produced better EFS than standard-timing induction therapy (4-day treatment courses separated by 2 weeks or longer).[3] The MRC has intensified induction therapy by prolonging the duration of cytarabine treatment to 10 days.[6] Another way of intensifying induction therapy is by the use of high-dose cytarabine. While studies in nonelderly adults suggest an advantage for intensifying induction therapy with high-dose cytarabine (2–3 g/m² /dose) compared with standard-dose cytarabine,[12,13] a benefit for the use of high-dose cytarabine compared with standard-dose cytarabine in children was not observed using a cytarabine dose of 1 g/m² given twice daily for 7 days with daunorubicin and thioguanine.[14] A second pediatric study also failed to detect a benefit for high-dose cytarabine over standard-dose cytarabine when used during induction therapy.[15]

Hematopoietic growth factors such as granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) or granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) during AML induction therapy have been evaluated in multiple placebo-controlled studies in adults with AML in attempts to reduce the toxicity associated with prolonged myelosuppression.[16,17] These studies have generally shown a reduction of several days in the duration of neutropenia with the use of either G-CSF or GM-CSF [16] but have not shown significant effects on treatment-related mortality or OS.[16] A randomized study in children with AML evaluating G-CSF administered following induction chemotherapy showed a reduction in duration of neutropenia, but no difference in infectious complications or mortality.[18] A higher relapse rate has been reported for children with AML expressing the differentiation defective G-CSF receptor isoform IV.[19] Thus, routine prophylactic use of hematopoietic growth factors is not recommended for children with AML.

Treatment options under clinical evaluation

The following are examples of national and/or institutional clinical trials that are currently being conducted. Information about ongoing clinical trials is available from the NCI Web site.

• AML08(Clofarabine Plus Cytarabine Versus Conventional Induction Therapy and a Study of Natural Killer Cell Transplantation in Newly Diagnosed AML): St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is conducting a randomized trial for children with newly diagnosed AML. This trial compares two induction regimens: cytarabine/daunorubicin/etoposide (ADE) versus clofarabine/cytarabine. Responses are assessed via morphology and flow cytometry (MRD) at the end of the induction phase.
• COG-AAML1031 (Bortezomib and Sorafenib Tosylate in Patients With Newly Diagnosed AML With or Without Mutations): COG-AAML1031 uses an ADE induction therapy backbone. For patients without FLT3-ITD–positive AML, the study is using a randomized design to evaluate whether the addition of bortezomib throughout the course of therapy improves EFS and OS. For patients with high allelic ratio FLT3-ITD–positive AML, the primary objective is to evaluate the feasibility of combining sorafenib (a small molecule FLT3 inhibitor) with standard chemotherapy. A secondary objective for this patient population is to determine the antileukemic activity of sorafenib for FLT3-ITD–positive AML.

Central Nervous System (CNS) Prophylaxis for AML

Although the presence of CNS leukemia at diagnosis (i.e., clinical neurologic features and/or leukemic cells in cerebral spinal fluid on cytocentrifuge preparation) is more common in childhood AML than in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), survival is not adversely affected.[20] This finding is perhaps related to both the higher doses of chemotherapy used in AML (with potential crossover to the CNS) and the fact that marrow disease has not yet been as effectively brought under long-term control in AML as in ALL. Children with M4 and M5 AML have the highest incidence of CNS leukemia (especially those with inv(16) or 11q23 chromosomal abnormalities). The use of some form of intrathecal chemotherapy as CNS-directed treatment is now incorporated into most protocols for the treatment of childhood AML and is considered a standard part of the treatment for AML.[21] Cranial radiation is no longer routinely employed in the treatment of children with AML.[22]

Granulocytic Sarcoma (GS)/Chloroma

GS (chloroma) describes extramedullary collections of leukemia cells. These collections can occur, albeit rarely, as the sole evidence of leukemia. In a review of three AML studies conducted by the former CCG, fewer than 1% of patients had isolated GS, and 11% had GS along with marrow disease at the time of diagnosis.[23] Importantly, the patient who presents with an isolated tumor, without evidence of marrow involvement, must be treated as if there is systemic disease. Patients with isolated GS have a good prognosis if treated with current AML therapy. For those patients who have GS in addition to marrow involvement, the patients with disease limited to the skin do worse than those without GS; those with AML that involves sites other than skin (e.g., orbit, head, and neck), have a similar prognosis to patients with bone marrow leukemia alone. Many of these patients have t(8;21) with orbital myeloblastomas. The use of radiation therapy does not improve survival in patients with GS who have a complete response to chemotherapy, but may be necessary if the site(s) of GS do not show complete response to chemotherapy, or for disease that reoccurs locally.[23]

Current Clinical Trials

Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's list of cancer clinical trials that are now accepting patients with untreated childhood acute myeloid leukemia and other myeloid malignancies. The list of clinical trials can be further narrowed by location, drug, intervention, and other criteria.

General information about clinical trials is also available from the NCI Web site.

References:

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