Christophe Willekens, MD, of the Gustave Roussy Cancer Center in France, met with Blood Cancers Today at the European Hematology Association 2024 Hybrid Congress in Madrid, Spain. He described his retrospective study comparing venetoclax dosing regimens in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which he presented at the Congress.
Dr. Willekens’ study involved a cohort of patients who received venetoclax reduced from the standard dosage of 28 days to seven days, combined with seven days of azacitidine. This cohort was compared against a cohort of patients who received the standard venetoclax dose.
The two cohorts’ differences in patient comorbidities, disease genetic characteristics, and fitness made them difficult to compare. However, Dr. Willekens said it was still clear that reducing venetoclax did not lead to a reduced response in patients.
“What is very interesting in our study is that when we compare response rates between these two cohorts with different schemes of venetoclax duration, the response rates were the same,” Dr. Willekens noted.
He highlighted that treating frail patients with seven days of venetoclax every month led to reduced early mortality at eight weeks, a major finding of the study.
“This is significant compared with patients who received the standard dose of venetoclax,” he added.
No difference in survival was seen between the two cohorts among patients who had TP53, FLT3, or NRAS mutations. However, survival differences among patients without mutations are difficult to evaluate, due to a survival difference between the two cohorts taking over a year to appear.
“This is the reason a prospective trial is needed, and this is what we are working for today. I hope that we will open this randomized, phase II trial as soon as possible,” Dr. Willekens concluded.