Researchers reported a number of important findings in leukemia treatment at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology:

Targeted therapy gilteritinib shown to prolong survival in FLT3-postive AML

The results of the phase III ADMIRAL trial showed that the targeted therapy gilteritinib significantly prolonged overall survival in people with FLT3-positive relapsed (returned) or refractory (resistant to treatment) acute myeloid leukemia (AML), compared with chemotherapy.

What Patients Need to Know

The trial showed that the clinical benefit of gilteritinib was maintained even if additional (non-FLT3) gene mutations were present.

Flumatinib compared to imatinib in treatment of chronic myelogenous

leukemia (CML)

According to the results of a phase III trial, the targeted therapy flumatinib may have superior effectiveness in the first-line (initial) treatment of chronic-phase CML, when compared with imatinib. In chronic-phase CML, the leukemia is slow-growing and generally responds well to treatment.

What Patients Need to Know

Flumatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), is a derivative of imatinib. Imatinib was the first TKI used for the treatment of CML. Researchers found that flumatinib and imatinib had comparable safety profiles.

Treatment-free remission in chronic-phase CML evaluated after second-line treatment with nilotinib

Updated results from the ENESTop trial showed that about half of patients with chronic-phase CML remained in treatment-free remission 3.7 years after stopping second-line treatment with the TKI nilotinib. Trial participants were previously treated with the TKI imatinib.

What Patients Need to Know

ENESTop is one of three trials evaluating treatment-free remission in people with chronic-phase CML after second-line treatment with nilotinib.