Real-World Outcomes of Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in Taiwan: A Nationwide Population-Based Study, 2011-2015

Abstract

Background

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a hematological malignancy originating from myeloid precursor cells, with different cytogenetic abnormalities, genetic mutations and diverse clinical prognoses. We investigated the clinical characteristics, treatment patterns, and outcomes of adult AML patients in Taiwan.

Materials and Methods

We retrospectively included 3851 patients with AML in the Taiwan Cancer Registry Database from 2011 to 2015. We excluded patients younger than 20 years, with acute promyelocytic leukemia, and with no pathological confirmation.

Results

Among the 3292 patients included, 2179 received induction chemotherapy and 1113 did not, because of older age and higher Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) score. Among the 2179 treated patients, 162 received high-dose cytarabine-based chemotherapy, 1535 received standard-dose cytarabine with anthracyclines, 209 received low-dose cytarabine-based chemotherapy, and 273 received chemotherapy without cytarabine. Patients in the low-dose cytarabine group had the oldest age and highest CCI scores compared with the other groups. In the analysis of overall survival (OS), the median OS of the overall study population was 6.27 months. Treated patients with AML had a longer OS than untreated ones (12.43 months treated vs. 2.03 months not treated; P < .0001). In the multivariate analyses of the treated patients with AML, several factors indicated better prognosis, including receiving standard-dose or high-dose cytarabine, female sex, younger age, lower CCI score, treatment at a medical center, favorable cytogenetic abnormalities, and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Conclusion

Our study was a population-based study that illustrates the real-world outcomes of adult patients with AML in Taiwan.