Prof Andrew Wei talks to ecancer about his talk at ASH 2021: Long-term overall survival with oral azacitidine in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia in first remission after intensive chemotherapy.

He begins by giving some background to the QUAZAR AML-001 trial, and says in this study oral azacitidine was delivered at a dose schedule of 300mg daily for 14 days each cycle, which allowed extended drug exposure compared to the traditional 7 day injectable regimens. The greater convenience of oral azacitidine allowed patients to remain on treatment for extended periods, with 1/3 of patients still on treatment after 2 years.

Prof Wei then goes on to explain that in this new analysis there's now a median follow-up time of 52 months. The median overall survival in each arm remains unchanged, however, the tails of the overall survival curves showed greatest separation, and did not touch or cross at any time. For example, at 3 years, the overall survival in the oral azacitidine arm was 37% compared to 28% in placebo. An almost 10% improvement of overall survival in favour of oral azacitidine at 3 years.

He concludes that this updated analysis confirms that oral azacitidine provides a sustained and long term overall survival benefit in older patients with AML with first remission.