Incidence, Correlates, and Prognostic Significance of Mixed Response in Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Mixed response (MR), a scenario featuring discordant tumor changes, has been reported primarily with targeted therapies or immunotherapy. We determined the incidence and prognostic significance of MR in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with cytotoxic chemotherapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We analyzed patient-level data from ECOG-ACRIN E5508 (carboplatin-paclitaxel + bevacizumab induction followed by randomization to maintenance therapy regimens). For patients with at least 2 target lesions and available measurements after cycle 2, we characterized response as homogeneous response (HR, similar behavior of all lesions), MR (similar behavior but >30% difference in magnitude of best and least responding lesions), or true mixed response (TMR, best and least responding lesions showing different behavior: ≥10% growth versus ≥10% shrinkage). We compared category characteristics using Mann-Whitney U and Chi-square tests, and overall survival (OS) using log-rank test and Cox models. RESULTS: Among 965 evaluable patients, HR occurred in 609 patients (63%), MR in 208 (22%), and TMR in 148 (15%). Median OS was 13.6 months for HR, 12.0 months for MR, and 7.6 months for TMR (P < .001). Compared to HR, TMR had inferior OS among stable disease cases (HR 1.62; 95% CI, 1.23-2.12; P < .001) and a trend toward inferior OS among progressive disease cases (HR 1.39; 95% CI, 0.83-2.33; P = .2). In multivariate analysis, TMR was associated with worse OS (HR 1.48; 95% CI, 1.22-1.79; P < .001). CONCLUSION: True mixed response occurs in a substantial minority of lung cancer cases treated with chemotherapy and independently confers poor prognosis.

Obesity in adult acute myeloid leukemia is not associated with inferior response or survival even when dose capping anthracyclines: An ECOG-ACRIN analysis.

BACKGROUND: Obesity (body mass index [BMI] ≥30 kg/m2 ) is an important epidemiological risk factor for developing acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Therefore, the authors studied the association of obesity with clinical and genetic phenotype and its impact on outcome in adults with AML. METHODS: The authors analyzed BMI in 1088 adults who were receiving intensive remission induction and consolidation therapy in two prospective, randomized therapeutic clinical trials of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-American College of Radiology Imaging Network: E1900 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT00049517; patients younger than 60 years) and E3999 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT00046930; patients aged 60 years or older). RESULTS: Obesity was prevalent at diagnosis (33%) and, compared with nonobesity, was associated with intermediate-risk cytogenetics group (p = .008), poorer performance status (p = .01), and a trend toward older age (p = .06). Obesity was not associated with somatic mutations among a selected 18-gene panel that was tested in a subset of younger patients. Obesity was not associated with clinical outcome (including complete remission, early death, or overall survival), and the authors did not identify any patient subgroup that had inferior outcomes based on BMI. Obese patients were significantly more likely to receive <90% of the intended daunorubicin dose despite protocol specification, particularly in the E1900 high-dose (90 mg/m2 ) daunorubicin arm (p = .002); however, this did not correlate with inferior overall survival on multivariate analysis (hazard ratio, 1.39; 95% confidence interval, 0.90-2.13; p = .14). CONCLUSIONS: Obesity is associated with unique clinical and disease-related phenotypic features in AML and may influence physician treatment decisions regarding daunorubicin dosing. However, the current study demonstrates that obesity is not a factor in survival, and strict adherence to body surface area-based dosing is not necessary because dose adjustments do not affect outcomes.

Prognostic effect of gender on outcome of treatment for adults with acute myeloid leukaemia.

There are conflicting reports in the literature suggesting that one gender or the other has a better survival with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). The present study was done in an attempt to resolve the issue. The effect of gender was examined on 3546 newly diagnosed patients with AML, including 548 patients with acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL) enrolled in 10 multi-institutional treatment studies from March 1984 to November 2008. Kaplan-Meier estimates were used to estimate event-time distributions for survival and multivariate models were used to examine the gender effect after adjusting for multiple risk factors. P values were based on two-sided tests. Non-APL female patients had a significantly better overall (OS) but not disease-free survival (DFS) than males, irrespective of age, initial white blood cell count, or dose of daunorubicin. No differences were observed for obese or FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3-internal tandem duplication (FLT3-ITD)-positive patients. Female patients with APL had a significantly better OS and DFS than male patients with APL, and differences in survival were greater for patients with t(15;17) + other cytogenetic abnormalities compared with those with t(15;17) only. Gender is an independent prognostic variable in patients with AML. Whether these survival differences are due to hormonal, genetic or pharmacokinetic differences between the sexes or differential toxin exposure such as smoking is unknown. However, the former seems less likely as patient age did not influence the survival advantage for female patients.

A Review of Immunotherapy for Stage III and Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and the Rationale for the ECOG-ACRIN EA5181 Study.

ECOG-ACRIN EA5181 is a phase III prospective, randomized trial that randomizes patients undergoing chemo/radiation for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (LA-NSCLC) to concomitant durvalumab or no additional therapy, with both arms receiving 1 year of consolidative durvalumab. Radiation dose escalation failed to improve overall survival in RTOG 0617. However, conventionally fractionated radiation to 60 Gy with concomitant chemotherapy is associated with a high risk of local failure (38%-46%). It is hoped that concomitant immunotherapy during chemo/radiation can help decrease the risk of local failure, thereby improving overall survival and progression-free survival with acceptable toxicity. In this article, we review conventional chemo/radiation therapy for LA-NSCLC, as well as the quickly evolving world of immunotherapy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer and discuss the rationale and study design of EA5181. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: This article provides an up-to-date assessment of how immunotherapy is reshaping the landscape of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and how the impact of this therapy is now rapidly moving into the treatment of patients with locally advanced NSCLC who are presenting for curative treatment. This article reviews the recent publications of chemo/radiation as well as those combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy and chemo/radiation, and provides a strategy for improving overall survival of patients with locally advanced NSCLC by using concomitant immunotherapy with standard concurrent chemo/radiation.

Cumulative incidence of cardiovascular events under tamoxifen and letrozole alone and in sequence: a report from the BIG 1-98 trial.

BACKGROUND: Compared to tamoxifen, adjuvant treatment with aromatase inhibitors improves disease outcomes of postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer. In the international, randomized, double-blind BIG 1-98 trial, 8010 women were randomized to receive tamoxifen, letrozole, or sequential use of the agents for 5 years. With a focus on switching between agents, we investigated cardiovascular events over the entire 5-year treatment period. METHODS: Of the 6182 patients enrolled, 6144 started trial treatment and were included in this analysis. Adverse events occurring during study treatment until 30 days after cessation were considered. Eight cardiovascular event types were defined. Cumulative incidence of events were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method, without consideration for competing events. Multivariable Cox models estimated hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for pairwise comparisons of treatment arms. RESULTS: While on study treatment, 6.5% of patients (n = 397) had any cardiac events reported; for 2.4%, the event was grades 3-5, of which 11 (0.2%) were grade 5. Letrozole monotherapy was associated with higher risk of grade 1-5 ischemic heart disease (HR = 1.81; 95% CI, 1.06-3.08) compared with tamoxifen monotherapy. Patients assigned sequential tamoxifen →letrozole (HR = 1.59; 95% CI, 0.92-2.74) or sequential letrozole → tamoxifen (HR = 1.20; 95% CI, 0.68-2.14) showed a lesser degree of risk elevation. Patients assigned to tamoxifen-containing regimens had significantly higher risk of grade 1-5 thromboembolic events (tamoxifen monotherapy HR = 2.10; 95% CI, 1.42-3.12; tamoxifen → letrozole HR = 1.96; 95% CI, 1.32-2.92; letrozole → tamoxifen HR = 1.56; 95% CI 1.03-2.35) as compared with patients assigned letrozole alone. CONCLUSION: When initiating or switching between adjuvant endocrine treatments in postmenopausal patients, age and medical history, with special attention to prior cardiovascular events, should be balanced with expected benefit of the treatment.

Pentostatin, Cyclophosphamide, and Rituximab Followed by Alemtuzumab for Relapsed or Refractory Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: A Phase 2 Trial of the ECOG-Acrin Cancer Research Group (E2903).

Patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) may benefit from salvage chemoimmunotherapy (CIT). To explore further the use of CIT in the pre-novel agent era, ECOG-ACRIN undertook a phase 2 trial (E2903) for R/R CLL utilizing pentostatin, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab (PCR) followed by a consolidation course of alemtuzumab. This trial enrolled 102 patients with a median age of 64 years. Treatment consisted of 6 cycles of PCR followed by alemtuzumab for either 4 or 18 weeks depending on the initial response to PCR. The overall response after PCR (complete remission, CR, nodular partial remission, nPR, and partial remission, PR) was 55%. Major responses (CR or nPR) were achieved in 6%. The median overall survival (OS) and the median progression-free survival were 28 and 12 months, respectively. The most serious nonlethal adverse events were myelosuppression, febrile neutropenia, fatigue, nausea, and hyponatremia. PCR is an effective and well-tolerated nucleoside-based regimen for heavily pretreated CLL patients with R/R disease. The addition of alemtuzumab to CLL patients with a minor response (PR) or stable disease did not result in a significant number of higher responses (CR or nPR) nor an improvement in OS.

Benefit of high-dose daunorubicin in AML induction extends across cytogenetic and molecular groups.

The initial report of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-American College of Radiology Imaging Network Cancer Research Group trial E1900 (#NCT00049517) showed that induction therapy with high-dose (HD) daunorubicin (90 mg/m(2)) improved overall survival in adults <60 years old with acute myeloid leukemia (AML); however, at initial analysis, the benefit was restricted to younger patients (<50 years) and patients without unfavorable cytogenetics or aFLT3-ITD mutation. Here, we update the results of E1900 after longer follow-up (median, 80.1 months among survivors), focusing on the benefit of HD daunorubicin on common genetic subgroups. Compared with standard-dose daunorubicin (45 mg/m(2)), HD daunorubicin is associated with a hazard ratio (HR) for death of 0.74 (P= .001). Younger patients (<50 years) benefited from HD daunorubicin (HR, 0.66;P= .002), as did patients with favorable and intermediate cytogenetics (HR, 0.51;P= .03 and HR, 0.68;P= .01, respectively). Patients with unfavorable cytogenetics were shown to benefit from HD daunorubicin on multivariable analysis (adjusted HR, 0.66;P= .04). Patients with FLT3-ITD (24%),DNMT3A(24%), and NPM1(26%) mutant AML all benefited from HD daunorubicin (HR, 0.61,P= .009; HR, 0.62,P= .02; and HR, 0.50,P= .002; respectively). HD benefit was seen in the subgroup of older patients (50-60 years) with the FLT3-ITD or NPM1 mutation. Additionally, the presence of an NPM1 mutation confers a favorable prognosis only for patients receiving anthracycline dose intensification during induction.

Very poor long-term survival in past and more recent studies for relapsed AML patients: The ECOG-ACRIN experience.

This study examines the long-term OS of relapsed AML patients who were enrolled to 9 successive ECOG-ACRIN trials for newly diagnosed AML, during 1984-2008. The objectives were to examine whether there is a trend of improvement in the survival of relapsed AML patients in the more recent studies and to search for prognostic factors that are associated with long-term OS after relapse. A total of 3012 patients were enrolled, 1779 (59.1%) achieved CR1 and of these, 58.9% relapsed. The median follow-up was 9.7 years. The median OS from relapse was 0.5 years and the 5-year OS was 10 (±1)%. These results were similar even for the most recent studies. A multivariate model showed that age, cytogenetics at diagnosis, duration of CR1 and undergoing allogeneic transplantation were significantly associated with OS from relapse. Even among patients who relapsed with better prognostic factors; age < 40 and CR1 > 12 months, there was no significant OS difference between the studies. In conclusion, this large cohort appears to confirm that the survival of AML patients postrelapse continues to be dismal and has not improved during the past quarter of a century.

Azacitidine with or without Entinostat for the treatment of therapy-related myeloid neoplasm: further results of the E1905 North American Leukemia Intergroup study.

Therapy-related myeloid neoplasms (tMN) are serious late effects of the treatment of cancer with poor response to conventional treatment. Azacitidine (AZA) has been used to treat patients with tMN but current data are retrospective. We present here 47 tMN patients prospectively enrolled as a specific cohort in the E1905 study. TheE1905 study was a randomized phase 2 study (NCT00313586) testing 10 d of AZA (50 mg/m(2) /d) +/- the histone deacetylase inhibitor entinostat (4 mg/m(2) /d PO day-3 and day-10). A total of 47 patients [29 therapy-related myelosyspastic syndrome (t-MDS) and 18 therapy-related acute myeloid leukaemia (t-AML)] were recruited to the study. 24 patients were treated with AZA monotherapy and 23 with AZA+entinostat. The median number of administered cycles was 4, significantly higher in patients treated with AZA (6 cycles vs. 3 cycles, P = 0·008). Haematological normalization rates were 46% in monotherapy and 17% in the combination arm. Median overall survivals were 13 and 6 months, respectively. The novel 50 * 10 schedule of azacitidine appears effective, with response rates, when given as single agent, comparable to those for patients with de novo MDS/AML treated on the same protocol. However, the combination of AZA and entinostat was associated with increased toxicity and could not be recommended for treatment of tMN.

Prognostic relevance of integrated genetic profiling in acute myeloid leukemia.

BACKGROUND: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease with respect to presentation and clinical outcome. The prognostic value of recently identified somatic mutations has not been systematically evaluated in a phase 3 trial of treatment for AML. METHODS: We performed a mutational analysis of 18 genes in 398 patients younger than 60 years of age who had AML and who were randomly assigned to receive induction therapy with high-dose or standard-dose daunorubicin. We validated our prognostic findings in an independent set of 104 patients. RESULTS: We identified at least one somatic alteration in 97.3% of the patients. We found that internal tandem duplication in FLT3 (FLT3-ITD), partial tandem duplication in MLL (MLL-PTD), and mutations in ASXL1 and PHF6 were associated with reduced overall survival (P=0.001 for FLT3-ITD, P=0.009 for MLL-PTD, P=0.05 for ASXL1, and P=0.006 for PHF6); CEBPA and IDH2 mutations were associated with improved overall survival (P=0.05 for CEBPA and P=0.01 for IDH2). The favorable effect of NPM1 mutations was restricted to patients with co-occurring NPM1 and IDH1 or IDH2 mutations. We identified genetic predictors of outcome that improved risk stratification among patients with AML, independently of age, white-cell count, induction dose, and post-remission therapy, and validated the significance of these predictors in an independent cohort. High-dose daunorubicin, as compared with standard-dose daunorubicin, improved the rate of survival among patients with DNMT3A or NPM1 mutations or MLL translocations (P=0.001) but not among patients with wild-type DNMT3A, NPM1, and MLL (P=0.67). CONCLUSIONS: We found that DNMT3A and NPM1 mutations and MLL translocations predicted an improved outcome with high-dose induction chemotherapy in patients with AML. These findings suggest that mutational profiling could potentially be used for risk stratification and to inform prognostic and therapeutic decisions regarding patients with AML. (Funded by the National Cancer Institute and others.).

Serum 2-hydroxyglutarate levels predict isocitrate dehydrogenase mutations and clinical outcome in acute myeloid leukemia.

Cancer-associated isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutations produce the metabolite 2-hydroxyglutarate (2HG), but the clinical utility of 2HG has not been established. We studied whether 2HG measurements in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients correlate with IDH mutations, and whether diagnostic or remission 2HG measurements predict survival. Sera from 223 de novo AML patients were analyzed for 2HG concentration by reverse-phase liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Pretreatment 2HG levels ranged from 10 to 30 000 ng/mL and were elevated in IDH-mutants (median, 3004 ng/mL), compared to wild-type IDH (median, 61 ng/mL) (P < .0005). 2HG levels did not differ among IDH1 or IDH2 allelic variants. In receiver operating characteristic analysis, a discriminatory level of 700 ng/mL optimally segregated patients with and without IDH mutations, and on subsequent mutational analysis of the 13 IDH wild-type samples with 2HG levels >700 ng/mL, 9 were identified to have IDH mutations. IDH-mutant patients with 2HG levels >200 at complete remission had shorter overall survival compared to 2HG ≤200 ng/mL (hazard ratio, 3.9; P = .02). We establish a firm association between IDH mutations and serum 2HG concentration in AML, and confirm that serum oncometabolite measurements provide useful diagnostic and prognostic information that can improve patient selection for IDH-targeted therapies.

Platelet count doubling after the first cycle of azacitidine therapy predicts eventual response and survival in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes and oligoblastic acute myeloid leukaemia but does not add to prognostic utility of the revised IPSS.

Reliable clinical or molecular predictors of benefit from azacitidine therapy in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are not defined. Doubling of platelet count at start of second cycle of azacitidine therapy compared to baseline was associated with achieving response and survival advantage in a Dutch cohort. To validate this observation, we analysed a larger cohort of North American patients, whose data was collected in a prospective clinical trial with a longer median follow-up. We found a significant association between platelet count doubling after first cycle of azacitidine therapy and probability of achieving objective response. Among patients with MDS or oligoblastic acute myeloid leukaemia (<30% bone marrow blasts, n = 102), there was a statistically significant reduction in risk of death for patients who achieved platelet count doubling (n = 23, median OS, 21·0 months) compared to those who did not (n = 79, median OS, 16·7 months, adjusted hazard ratio (no/yes)=1·88, 95% confidence interval, 1·03-3·40, P = 0·04). Nonetheless, the addition of this platelet count doubling variable did not improve the survival prediction provided by the revised International Prognostic Scoring System or the French Prognostic Scoring System. Identification of reliable and consistent predictors for clinical benefit for azacitidine therapy remains an unmet medical need and a top research priority.

Comparison of the prognostic utility of the revised International Prognostic Scoring System and the French Prognostic Scoring System in azacitidine-treated patients with myelodysplastic syndromes.

The revised International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS-R) was developed in a cohort of untreated myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) patients. A French Prognostic Scoring System (FPSS) was recently reported to identify differential survival among azacitidine-treated patients with high-risk MDS. We applied the FPSS and IPSS-R to 150 patients previously randomized to azacitidine monotherapy or a combination of azacitidine with entinostat (a histone deacetylase inhibitor). Neither score predicted response but both discriminated patients with different overall survival (OS; median OS, FPSS: 9·7, 14·7, and 25·3 months, P = 0·018; IPSS-R: 12·5, 11·3, 20·8, and 36 months, P = 0·005). Statistical analysis suggested no improvement in OS prediction for the FPSS over the IPSS-R in azacitidine-treated patients.

Bone mineral density and circulating biomarkers in the BIG 1-98 trial comparing adjuvant letrozole, tamoxifen and their sequences.

The purpose of the study is to determine the effects of the BIG 1-98 treatments on bone mineral density. BIG 1-98 compared 5-year adjuvant hormone therapy in postmenopausal women allocated to four groups: tamoxifen (T); letrozole (L); 2-years T, 3-years L (TL); and 2-years L, 3-years T (LT). Bone mineral density T-score was measured prospectively annually by dual energy X-ray absorption in 424 patients enrolled in a sub-study after 3 (n = 150), 4 (n = 200), and 5 years (n = 74) from randomization, and 1 year after treatment cessation. Prevalence of osteoporosis and the association of C-telopeptide, osteocalcin, and bone alkaline phosphatase with T-scores were assessed. At 3 years, T had the highest and TL the lowest T-score. All arms except for LT showed a decline up to 5 years, with TL exhibiting the greatest. At 5 years, there were significant differences on lumbar T-score only between T and TL, whereas for femur T-score, differences were significant for T versus L or TL, and L versus LT. The 5-year prevalence of spine and femur osteoporosis was the highest on TL (14.5 %, 7.1 %) then L (4.3 %, 5.1 %), LT (4.2 %, 1.4 %) and T (4 %, 0). C-telopeptide and osteocalcin were significantly associated with T-scores. While adjuvant L increases bone mineral density loss compared with T, the sequence LT has an acceptable bone safety profile. C-telopeptide and osteocalcin are useful markers of bone density that may be used to monitor bone health during treatment. The sequence LT may be a valid treatment option in patients with low and intermediate risk of recurrence.

Prognostic information and biological insights in chronic lymphocytic leukemia by high-resolution immunophenotypic analysis of ZAP70.

The E2997 Phase III trial included preservation of valuable chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patient specimens and relevant clinical outcome data. Using a novel high-resolution technology on a flow cytometry platform, we assessed 79 E2997 samples for the expression of 27 analytes that reflected the activity of signaling pathways and apoptosis. We found that the expression levels of ZAP70 segregated the samples into two subpopulations with the distribution showing a peak-trough-peak configuration. Although prior assessment of ZAP70 by standard procedures did not reveal any prognostic information, we found by using the trough in the distribution as a cutpoint that ZAP70 expression levels were significantly correlated with both progression-free survival and overall survival. Additionally, the cells expressing high versus low levels of ZAP70 demonstrated distinct molecular organization as indicated by the other analytes assessed. Our analysis demonstrates the value of ZAP70 expression as a prognostic indicator and suggests that the different clinical results may be due to the distinct molecular biology of the ZAP70-low versus the ZAP70-high CLL samples.

CD25 expression status improves prognostic risk classification in AML independent of established biomarkers: ECOG phase 3 trial, E1900.

We determined the prognostic relevance of CD25 (IL-2 receptor-α) expression in 657 patients (≤ 60 years) with de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treated in the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group trial, E1900. We identified CD25(POS) myeloblasts in 87 patients (13%), of whom 92% had intermediate-risk cytogenetics. CD25 expression correlated with expression of stem cell antigen CD123. In multivariate analysis, controlled for prognostic baseline characteristics and daunorubicin dose, CD25(POS) patients had inferior complete remission rates (P = .0005) and overall survival (P < .0001) compared with CD25(NEG) cases. In a subset of 396 patients, we integrated CD25 expression with somatic mutation status to determine whether CD25 impacted outcome independent of prognostic mutations. CD25 was positively correlated with internal tandem duplications in FLT3 (FLT3-ITD), DNMT3A, and NPM1 mutations. The adverse prognostic impact of FLT3-ITD(POS) AML was restricted to CD25(POS) patients. CD25 expression improved AML prognostication independent of integrated, cytogenetic and mutational data, such that it reallocated 11% of patients with intermediate-risk disease to the unfavorable-risk group. Gene expression analysis revealed that CD25(POS) status correlated with the expression of previously reported leukemia stem cell signatures. We conclude that CD25(POS) status provides prognostic relevance in AML independent of known biomarkers and is correlated with stem cell gene-expression signatures associated with adverse outcome in AML.

Autologous transplantation gives encouraging results for young adults with favorable-risk acute myeloid leukemia, but is not improved with gemtuzumab ozogamicin.

We report the results of a prospective, randomized phase 3 trial evaluating the use of gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO) in an intensive consolidation approach in 657 patients 17-60 years of age. Patients in first complete remission (CR1) after cytarabine and standard- or high-dose daunorubicin induction received 2 cycles of consolidation with high-dose cytarabine followed by peripheral blood progenitor cell collection. The 352 patients who entered consolidation were randomized to receive GO (n = 132) or not (n = 138) and then proceeded to autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). GO was given to 67 patients. Median follow-up was 50.9 months. Results of the intention-to-treat analysis demonstrated a 4-year disease-free survival (DFS) of 33.6% versus 35.9% (P = .54) and an overall survival (OS) of 41.3% versus 41.9% (P = .52) for those randomized to receive GO versus no GO, respectively. Patients with favorable- and intermediate-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treated with high-dose daunorubicin and autologous HCT had 4-year DFS rates of 60% and 40% and OS rates of 80% and 49.3%, respectively. For younger AML patients in CR1, autologous HCT should be considered in favorable- and intermediate-cytogenetic risk patients who do not have an allogeneic donor. The addition of a single dose of GO in this setting did not improve outcomes.

Characteristics and prognostic impact of IDH mutations in AML: a COG, SWOG, and ECOG analysis.

Somatic mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) genes occur frequently in adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and less commonly in pediatric AML. The objective of this study was to describe the prevalence, mutational profile, and prognostic significance of IDH mutations in AML across age. Our cohort included 3141 patients aged between <1 month and 88 years treated on Children's Cancer Group/Children's Oncology Group (n = 1872), Southwest Oncology Group (n = 359), Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (n = 397) trials, and in Beat AML (n = 333) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (n = 180) genomic characterization cohorts. We retrospectively analyzed patients in 4 age groups (age range, n): pediatric (0-17, 1744), adolescent/young adult (18-39, 444), intermediate-age (40-59, 640), older (≥60, 309). IDH mutations (IDHmut) were identified in 9.2% of the total cohort (n = 288; IDH1 [n = 123, 42.7%]; IDH2 [n = 165, 57.3%]) and were strongly correlated with increased age: 3.4% pediatric vs 21% older, P < .001. Outcomes were similar in IDHmut and IDH-wildtype (IDHWT) AML (event-free survival [EFS]: 35.6% vs 40.0%, P = .368; overall survival [OS]: 50.3% vs 55.4%, P = .196). IDH mutations frequently occurred with NPM1 (47.2%), DNMT3A (29.3%), and FLT3-internal tandem duplication (ITD) (22.4%) mutations. Patients with IDHmut AML with NPM1 mutation (IDHmut/NPM1mut) had significantly improved survival compared with the poor outcomes experienced by patients without (IDHmut/NPM1WT) (EFS: 55.1% vs 17.0%, P < .001; OS: 66.5% vs 35.2%, P < .001). DNTM3A or FLT3-ITD mutations in otherwise favorable IDHmut/NPM1mut AML led to inferior outcomes. Age group analysis demonstrated that IDH mutations did not abrogate the favorable prognostic impact of NPM1mut in patients aged <60 years; older patients had poor outcomes regardless of NPM1 status. These trials were registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT00070174, #NCT00372593, #NCT01371981, #NCT00049517, and #NCT00085709.

Prognostic interaction between expression of p53 and estrogen receptor in patients with node-negative breast cancer: results from IBCSG Trials VIII and IX.

INTRODUCTION: The prognostic significance of p53 protein expression in early breast cancer remains uncertain, with some but not all studies finding an association with poorer outcomes. Estrogen receptor (ER) expression is both a positive prognostic marker and predictive of response to endocrine therapies. The relationship between these biomarkers is unknown. METHODS: We constructed tissue microarrays (TMAs) from available pathological material from 1113 patients participating in two randomized clinical trials comparing endocrine therapy alone versus chemo-endocrine therapy in node-negative breast cancer. Expression of p53 defined as >10% positive nuclei was analyzed together with prior immunohistochemical assays of ER performed at central pathological review of whole tumor sections. RESULTS: ER was present (i.e. >1% positive tumor cell nuclei) in 80.1% (880/1092). p53 expression was significantly more frequent when ER was absent, 125/212 (59%) than when ER was present, 171/880 (19%), p <0.0001. A significant qualitative interaction was observed such that p53 expression was associated with better disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) among patients whose tumors did not express ER, but worse DFS and OS among patients whose tumors expressed ER. The interaction remained significant after allowance for pathologic variables, and treatment. Similar effects were seen when luminal and non-luminal intrinsic subtypes were compared. CONCLUSIONS: Interpretation of the prognostic significance of p53 expression requires knowledge of concurrent expression of ER. The reason for the interaction between p53 and ER is unknown but may reflect qualitatively different p53 mutations underlying the p53 expression in tumors with or without ER expression. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ACTRN12607000037404 (Trial VIII) and ACTRN12607000029493 (Trial IX).