(The Oncology Report) – Teens and young adults don’t like being treated like children, but they should make an exception when it comes to acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapy, because pediatric ALL regimens are associated with significantly better event-free and overall survival among patients with ALL from the ages of 16 to 40 years.
Those findings come from a clinical trial 14 years in the making, in which 296 adolescents and young adults (AYA) with ALL were treated with an intensive pediatric chemotherapy combination regiment rather than a less-intensive adult regimen. At 2-year follow-up, the rate of overall survival (OS) was 78%, with the median overall survival not yet reached, and the event-free survival (EFS) rate was 66%, reported Dr. Wendy Stock from the University of Chicago Medical Center.
In contrast, EFS rates among AYA treated with adult regimens have historically ranged from 35-40%, Dr. Stock said at a press briefing at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.
“These data really started 14 years ago at this ASH meeting when we presented data showing that young adults ages 16 to 20 who were treated on adult cooperative group studies in the United States fared much worse than the same age group who were treated on pediatric studies,” she said.