Safety and Efficacy Study of Nilotinib Combined With Mitoxantrone, Etoposide, and High-dose Cytarabine Induction Chemotherapy Followed by Consolidation for Patients With C-kit Positive Acute Myeloid Leukemia

This is a phase I/II open-label study that is evaluating the toxicity and efficacy of nilotinib combined with mitoxantrone, etoposide, and high-dose cytarabine (NOVE-HiDAC) chemotherapy for patients with poor-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML). There are two parts to the study. The first part (Phase I) will determine the maximum dose of nilotinib that can safely be given when combined with NOVE-HiDAC. This dose will then be used in combination with the NOVE-HiDAC regimen in the second part of the study (Phase II), which will evaluate the antileukemic activity of the treatment. The patients who achieve complete remission from the induction therapy (1 cycle) will then receive consolidation therapy combined with nilotinib (maximum of 2 cycles). The patient population for this study will have AML and will fall into a poor risk category. This means they have persistent leukemia after induction therapy, they relapse within two years of achieving complete remission with induction therapy, or they have certain poor risk features at diagnosis. The AML cells will also be positive for c-kit (a stem cell factor receptor), which is involved in cancer cell growth. Nilotinib is a drug that blocks the effects of c-kit. Using this drug in combination with chemotherapy may improve ability of the chemotherapy drugs to kill leukemia cells. This may then increase the chances of the leukemia going into complete remission.