Long-term outcomes for patients with acute myeloid leukemia: a single-center experience from AIIMS, India

To analyze clinicopathological characteristics of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients and to evaluate long-term outcome of these patients presented to single tertiary care center in India.

We evaluated outcomes of 480 patients (age 8-60 years), classified into good, intermediate and poor risk according to cytogenetic results. Standard "3 + 7" induction therapy with dose of daunorubicin ranging from 45 to 90 mg/m(2) followed by two to three courses of high-dose cytarabine (12-18 g/m(2) ) as consolidation therapy was given to majority.

The complete remission rate of the treated population (407 patients) was 70% with 84.8% in good risk, 67.9% in intermediate risk and 54.2% in poor risk (P = 0.0001). Induction mortality was 18.4%. One hundred twenty-nine patients relapsed with median treatment free interval of 10.4 months. At a median follow-up of 34.5 months, the median overall survival (OS) was 20.6 months with an estimated 5-year survival rate of 35.5%. No difference was found in OS between the three risk groups; however, patients with intermediate risk had a better leukemia-free survival (LFS) in comparison to good risk. Multivariate analysis showed age, performance status, treatment completion and hematopoietic stem cell transplant affecting OS, while only treatment completion affected LFS.

This is one of the largest single-center studies reflecting more accurately the outcome of AML in India. These results are likely due to uniform treatment protocols, intensification of induction and post-remission treatments with comprehensive supportive care.