Salvage chemotherapy regimens for acute myeloid leukemia: Is one better? Efficacy comparison between CLAG and MEC regimens

There is no standard salvage regimen for AML. We retrospectively compared two commonly used regimens at our institution: CLAG and MEC. The complete response rate (CR) was 37.9% for CLAG (n = 97) and 23.8% for MEC (n = 65) (P = 0.048), with median overall survival (OS) of 7.3 and 4.5 months, respectively (P = 0.05). In primary refractory disease, CR was 45.5% for CLAG and 22.2% for MEC (P = 0.09), with median OS of 11 and 4.5 months, respectively (P = 0.07). In first relapse, CR was 36.8% and 25.9% (P = 0.35) and median OS was 6.7 and 6.7 months, respectively (P = 0.87). Our data support use of CLAG for RR-AML.