AML consolidation therapy: timing matters

PURPOSE: Infections due to severe neutropenia are the most common therapy-associated causes of mortality in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). New strategies to lessen the severity and duration of neutropenia are needed. METHODS: Cytarabine is commonly used for AML consolidation therapy; we compared high- and intermediate-dose cytarabine administration on days 1, 2, and 3 (AC-123) versus days 1, 3, and 5 (AC-135) in consolidation therapy of AML. Recently, clinical trials demonstrated that high-dose AC-123 resulted in a shortened white blood cell (WBC) recovery time compared with high-dose AC-135. Our main hypothesis is that this is also the case for different cytarabine dosage, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) administration, and cycle lengths. We analyzed 334 treatment schedules on virtual cohorts of digital twins. RESULTS: Comparison of 32,565 simulated consolidation cycles resulted in a reduction in the WBC recovery time for AC-123 in 99.6% of the considered cycles (median reduction 3.5 days) without an increase in the number of leukemic blasts (lower value in 94.2% of all cycles), compared to AC-135. CONCLUSION: Our numerical study supports the use of AC-123 plus G-CSF as standard conventional AML consolidation therapy to reduce the risk for life-threatening infectious complications. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00432-023-05115-0.