CC-486 Improves Overall and Relapse-Free Survival in Patients With AML

Andrew Wei, MBBS, PhD, an adjunct associate professor at Australian Centre for Blood Diseases at Monash University, discusses the results from the phase 3 QUAZAR AML-001 Maintenance Trial of CC-486 for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in the first remission after intensive chemotherapy.

Elderly patients receiving chemotherapy can suffer severe toxicities, which makes further consolidation therapy difficult. Wei and his colleagues investigated how the number of consolidations—0, 1, or 2 or more—affected patients’ response to CC-486 or placebo. The study drug and placebo were each given at 300 mg for 14 days per cycle until disease progression. Wei says that patients who had not received any consolidation had improved overall survival with CC-486 from 11 months to 23 months.

Patients receiving CC-486 also had better survival than those receiving placebo regardless of the amount of consolidation. According to Wei, patients who received 2 or more cycles of consolidation seemed to do the best, with a median overall survival of 29 months. These findings show that patients who are treated with CC-486 have an improved relapse-free and overall survival no matter how many cycles of consolidation they received, he concludes.