Abstract
The trends in modern chemotherapy for AML are best exemplified by the multicenter randomized trials listed in Table 1. In these trials a total of 7554 patients have been treated. The overall complete remission rate is 63% and the 5-year relapse-free survival rate is 21%. A certain chronological trend can be seen in that 5-year remission rates in excess of 25% are found only in publications from the 1990. The same, however, is true for mortality in remission of 10% and more, indicating the limits of the generally increasing treatment intensity. The table shows the trials or treatment arms within trials in order of the intensity of chemotherapy in the induction, consolidation and maintenance phases. Intensification appears as a determinant of outcome in that 5-year remission rates of 30% and over are produced only by intensified consolidation or induction regimens [9, 13-15]. The role of maintenance as a determinant of outcome is underlined in that reduced maintenance [6, 8, 10] or no maintenance after standard consolidation [3] resulted in low 5-year remission rates. On the other hand, the effect of maintenance may be replaced by that of intensified consolidation [9, 10, 15].
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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Büchner, T. (1997). Chemotherapy for Acute Myeloid Leukemia: the State of the Art and the Contribution of Idarubicin. In: Büchner, T., Schellong, G., Ritter, J., Creutzig, U., Hiddemann, W., Wörmann, B. (eds) Acute Leukemias VI. Haematology and Blood Transfusion / Hämatologie und Bluttransfusion, vol 38. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60377-8_65
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60377-8_65
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