Comparison of clinical remission and survival between CLAG and FLAG induction chemotherapy in patients with refractory or relapsed acute myeloid leukemia: a prospective cohort study

PURPOSE: To compare the clinical remission and survival between CLAG and FLAG induction chemotherapy in treating patients with refractory or relapsed acute myeloid leukemia (R/R AML). METHODS: 103 R/R AML patients were consecutively enrolled in this prospective cohort study. 55 patients were treated by CLAG induction chemotherapy as follows: 5 mg/m(2)/day cladribine (days 1–5); 2 g/m(2)/day cytarabine (days 1–5) and 300 μg/day filgrastim (days 0–5). While 48 patients were treated by FLAG: 30 mg/m(2)/day fludarabine (days 1–5), 2 g/m(2)/day cytarabine (days 1–5), and 300 μg/day filgrastim (days 0–5). RESULTS: CLAG induction chemotherapy achieved 61.7% complete remission rate (CR) and 78.7% overall remission rate (ORR), which was similar with FLAG chemotherapy which realized 48.7% CR and 69.2% ORR. No difference of overall survival (OS) was discovered between two groups either. Age cytarabine 60 years, secondary disease, poor risk stratification and BM blast ≥ 42.7% and second or higher salvage therapy were independent factors for worse prognosis. Subgroups analysis revealed that in patients with second or higher salvage therapy, CLAG seemed to achieve a higher CR than FLAG. And in patients with relapsed disease, poor risk stratification or CR at first induction, CLAG seemed to realize a prolonged OS compared to FLAG. CONCLUSION: CLAG was equally effective to FLAG induction chemotherapy in total R/R AML patients, while CLAG seemed to be a better option than FLAG in patients with relapsed disease, poor risk stratification, CR at first induction or second or higher salvage therapies. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12094-017-1798-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.