Long-term results of children with acute myeloid leukemia: a report of three consecutive Phase III trials by the Children's Cancer Group: CCG 251, CCG 213 and CCG 2891

The Children's Cancer Group (CCG) conducted three Phase III prospective clinical trials for children with de novo acute myeloid leukemia between the years 1979 and 1995. A total of 1903 eligible children ages birth to 21 years of age were enrolled on CCG 251 ( n= 485), CCG 213 ( n= 532) and CCG 2891 ( n= 886). Follow-up is ongoing, with medians of 7.9, 10.9 and 8.6 years, respectively. These three clinical trials developed dose- and time-intensive induction regimens based upon high-dose cytarabine and daunomycin and randomly assigned patients to allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in first remission if an HLA-matched related donor was identified. Despite dose- and time-intensive induction regimens, remission induction rates remained relatively stable at 77–78%. However, overall survival, event-free survival and disease-free survival (DFS) increased for patients receiving intensive-timing induction therapy in comparison to patients who received standard-timing induction, regardless of the type of postremission therapy. Outcomes were best for patients receiving intensive-timing induction followed by matched related donor allogeneic transplantation with DFS of 65±9% at 6 years. These three clinical trials have established a strong foundation for the development of future studies focusing on further risk group stratification and the development of novel, molecularly-targeted therapies.