Dr. Cortes Discusses Quizartinib in AML

Jorge E. Cortes, MD, professor and deputy chair, Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses quizartinib for the treatment of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Quizartinib is a potent, selective FLT3 inhibitor, explains Cortes. In the QuANTUM-R study, quizartinib showed an improvement in overall survival (OS) for patients with FLT3-ITD—positive relapsed/refractory AML after first-line treatment with or without hematopoietic stem cell transplantation compared to chemotherapy. These data led to the FDA granting the FLT3 inhibitor a breakthrough therapy designation for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed/refractory FLT3-ITD—positive AML in August 2018.

Phase III data showed that quizartinib reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 24% compared with salvage chemotherapy. At a median follow-up of 23.5 months, the median OS was 6.2 months (95% CI, 5.2-7.2) with the FLT3 inhibitor compared with 4.7 months (95% CI, 4.0-5.5) with salvage chemotherapy (HR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.58-0.98; stratified log-rank test, 1-sided P = .0177).