A Remission Induction Therapy and Risk-oriented Postremission Strategy for Adult Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML)

The study was set up to assess: 1. Standard-dose versus high-dose remission induction therapy. A standard ICE chemotherapy vs sequential high-dose cytarabine, with appropriate supportive/prophylactic measures, followed by morphological, cytogenetic and molecular monitoring of remission. 2. A risk-oriented postremission therapy: HR patients will be electively submitted to allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT), whenever possible (related/unrelated donor/cord blood; ablative/non-ablative conditioning according to national and local protocols and guidelines). Provided sufficient blood stem cells were previously collected (\>2x10e6/kg Cluster of Differentiation 34 cells), SR patients and HR patients excluded from allo-SCT and aged 65 years or less will be randomized to: myeloablative autologous blood stem cell transplantation vs non-myeloablative, multicycle, autologous blood stem cell-supported high-dose cytarabine-based therapy. * HR/SR patients unable to be randomized because of inadequate blood stem cell yield will receive intermediate-dose consolidation; patients aged \>65 years will be treated with age-adapted therapy.