Effect of CAG induction therapy in patients with acute myeloid leukemia

Objective To assess the effect of low-dose cytarabine and aclarubicin in combination with gran-ulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) protocol (CAG) in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML),and to understand the potential factors affecting the outcome of CAG induction therapy, therefore to find the optimum pa-tients for CAG therapy. Methods Twenty-one AML patients were enrolled in the current study. All patients were treated with CAG regimen including cytarabine (10 mg/m~2, subcutaneously, every 12 h, days 1 - 14), lacinomycin (5～7 mg/m~2,intravenously,every day, days 1 -8) ,and G-CSF (200 μg/m~2,subcutaneously, every day,12 h be-fore Ara-C was given) priming. Results The overall complete remission (CR) rate of the 21 AML patients was 66.7% (14/21). The CR rates was 87.5% (7/8) in patients older than 60 yrs,60.0% (9/15) in the refractory or relapsed patients,83.3% (5/6) in the MDS transformed AML patients. The CR rates for patients with hyperprolif-erative BM and median to poor proliferative BM were 33.3% and 91.7% ,respectively(P =0.009). The median o-verall survival (OS) time of the 21 AML patients was 450 days. Two-year survival rate estimated by Kaplan-Meier Method was 30.6%. The overall median disease free survival (DFS) was 165 days. The median OS time for those refractory or relapsed was 435 days. The median OS time for those with poor cytogenetic state or standard or good cytogenetic state was 140 days and 620 days, respectively (P = 0.001). The median OS time for patients with hyperproliferative BM and median to poor proliferative BM was 321 days and 620 days, respectively (P = 0.05). The median recovery time of granulocytes above 1.0×10~9/L was 8 days. The median duration of fever was 3.5 days. The rate of infections exceeding WHO grade Ⅱ was 42.9%. No early death occurred. Conclusions The CAG induction therapy may have a higher CR rate in patients with refractory or relapsed AML, elderly AML and secondary AML from MDS transformation, and extend the median overall survival time in refractory or relapsed patients. CAG therapy can not improve the outcome of patients whose BM was in high grade proliferation state or whose cytogenetic state was poor. CAG therapy can shorten the duration of agranulocytosis and decrease the inci-dence of serious infection. Therefore, CAG therapy is worth recommending to patients who can not endure the rou-tine intensive chemotherapy. Key words: Acute myeloid leukemia; Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor; Cytarabine; Lacinomy-cin