Treatment of AML: Resurrection for gemtuzumab ozogamicin?

摘要

In The Lancet, Sylvie Castaigne and colleagues1 report findings from a trial in which they randomly assigned 280 patients aged 50-70 years, with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukaemia, to receive three courses (the first to induce remission, the second and third to consolidate it) of standard therapy (daunorubicin and cytarabine) with or without intravenous gemtuzumab ozogamicin (3 mg/m2 on days 1, 4, and 7). Although remission rates were much the same in the two groups, patients given gemtuzumab ozogamicin had lower relapse rates and consequently longer event-free (40-8% vs 17-1%, HR 0-58, 95% Cl 0-43-0-78) and overall (53-2% vs 41-9%, 0-69, 0-49-0-98) survival at 2 years than did controls.