AflacLL1901 (CHOA-AML)

Advances in risk stratification and therapy, have improved the event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) for pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) to approximately 50% and 65% respectively, with current treatment strategies. Patients with good response to induction and/or those who lack high-risk cytogenetic and molecular features \[classified as low-risk AML (LR-AML)\] have even better outcomes with EFS and OS approaching 70% and 85% respectively; however, treatment-related toxicities remain a major concern. Anthracycline-based therapeutic regimens expose patients to the risk of anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity. Therefore, strategies that reduce cardiac toxicities using tailored approaches while maintaining and/or improving outcomes are needed for all patients with AML. The Children's Oncology Group (COG) regimens AAML1031 and AAML0531 utilized an anthracycline-intensive backbone for LR-AML with cumulative anthracycline doxorubicin-equivalent doses of up to 492mg/m2. However, high-risk patients treated with chemotherapy alone received an intensified induction chemotherapy (using mitoxantrone-cytarabine) but with overall reduced doses of anthracycline-equivalent (342mg/m2). The investigators piloted an institutional practice to treat all LR-AML patients with four cycle regimen (Aflac-AML) with the goal of reducing cumulative anthracycline exposure, thereby reducing the risk of cardiotoxicity, while providing three high-dose cytarabine courses. In this pilot institutional experience with this approach, they were able to maintain excellent outcomes for this low-risk group with 3-year event-free survival (EFS) and OS of 70.0% ± 0.1% and 85.5% ± 0.08% respectively, from end of course 1. Recent evolution in cytogenetic classification has further delineated risk groups in AML. Gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO), an antibody-drug conjugate was shown to reduce relapse risk in patients with CC genotype with de-novo AML on COG study AAML0531. The investigators propose to study an Aflac-AML chemotherapy backbone prospectively to validate its use in all pediatric AML and to further evaluate the cardiotoxicity with this approach for low risk AML.