1. An update of current treatments for adult acute myeloid leukemia.
- Author
-
Dombret, Hervé and Gardin, Claude
- Subjects
- *
LEUKEMIA treatment , *MYELOID leukemia , *ACUTE promyelocytic leukemia , *HEMATOPOIETIC stem cell transplantation , *PURINES , *ARSENIC trioxide , *TRETINOIN - Abstract
Recent advances in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) biology and its genetic landscape should ultimately lead to more subsetspecific AML therapies, ideally tailored to each patient's disease. Although a growing number of distinct AML subsets have been increasingly characterized, patient management has remained disappointingly uniform. If one excludes acute promyelocytic leukemia, current AML management still relies largely on intensive chemotherapy and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), at least in younger patients who can tolerate such intensive treatments. Nevertheless, progress has been made, notably in terms of standard drug dose intensification and safer allogeneic HSCT procedures, allowing a larger proportion of patients to achieve durable remission. In addition, improved identification of patients at relatively low risk of relapse should limit their undue exposure to the risks ofHSCTin first remission. The role of new effective agents, such as purine analogs or gemtuzumab ozogamicin, is still under investigation, whereas promising new targeted agents are under clinical development. In contrast, minimal advances have been made for patients unable to tolerate intensive treatment, mostly representing older patients. The availability of hypomethylating agents likely represents an encouraging first step for this latter population, and it is hoped will allow for more efficient combinations with novel agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF