Discussion
leukemia, Leukemia, Cancer
GROUP B, LEUKEMIA, LEUKEMIA, RESIDUAL DISEASE, MINIMAL RESIDUAL DISEASE, CANCER
Since the results from the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALBG) study group, which demonstrated an advantage for 3 g/mImplications that HiDAC for consolidation is beneficial for certain genetic subgroups, in particular core binding factor leukemia (Bloomfield et al. Being based on registry data, our study lacks information on minimal residual disease levels after induction therapy, which could have given valuable insights if intensified consolidation may be beneficial in dependence of residual disease burden. At least, there was no hint that the number of induction cycles among patients who received 7 + 3 induction therapy influenced the outcome in dependence of dose of cytarabine consolidation, as assessed by interaction analyses in multivariable Cox-Model testing (data not shown) and the obvious fact that the significantly higher number of induction cycles among HiDAC-treated patients did not result in survival benefit. The retrospective nature of this study, the risk of not accounting for unknown prognostic relevant factors, which have not been balanced for, as well as the long interval since 2005 might present limitations of this study.