Background: Relapse remains the main cause of treatment failure post transplantation. Relapse prevention is an important strategy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the results of21 high risk AML patients who received a median number of 3 courses (range, 2 - 8) of decitabine (DAC) maintenance treatment (20mg/m2/d ×5d every 3 months for 1 year). Meanwhile, another 63 high risk AML patients without any prophylactic treatment after transplantation were included as a control group for 1:3 pair matched study.
Results: With median follow-up of 23 months, 20 out of 21 (95.2%) patients maintained complete molecular remission (CMR) in DAC group, while 35 out of 63 (55.6%) patients maintained CMR in control group. Comparing with control group, the patients of DAC group had higher 3-year overall survival (OS) rates and 3-year leukemia free survival (LFS) rates (92.9% vs 51.8%, P =0.003; 94.1% vs 54.7%, P=0.002 respectively). Moreover, DAC maintenance was well tolerated in all patients and grade 3/4 or 4/4 hematological toxicities were observed in 11 of 21 (52.4%) patients.
Conclusion: Our results suggested that DAC maintenance therapy was an effective and safe treatment option to prevent relapse after transplantation for high risk AML patients.
No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Author notes
Asterisk with author names denotes non-ASH members.
