LAUSR

Limited data was available for long‐term follow‐up in newly diagnosed acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) patients treated with all‐trans‐retinoic acid (ATRA) plus intravenously arsenic trioxide (ATO)‐based front‐line therapy. The aim of this work was to retrospectively analyze the long‐term survival rate and frequency of therapy‐related myeloid neoplasia (t‐MN) occurring in a large cohort of APL patients. A total of 760 newly diagnosed patients with APL between January 1999 and May 2016 were evaluated. The early death rate was 9.2% (70/760). Of the remaining 690 patients with complete remission, patients were grouped according to front‐line regimens: ATRA plus ATO with or without chemotherapy (ATO group) and ATRA with chemotherapy (non‐ATO group). The median duration of follow‐up was 7.5 years (1.0‐18.3 years). ATO group showed significant superior 10‐year estimated relapse‐free survival (RFS) up to 90.3% comparing with 65.5% in the non‐ATO group (P < 0.0001). In addition, the 10‐year estimated overall survival (OS) was 93.9% for patients in the ATO group and 89.1% for those in the non‐ATO group (P = 0.03). In the subgroup analysis, the RFS rate was also higher in ATO group comparing with non‐ATO group in both low‐to‐intermediate‐risk (94.2% vs 64.6%, P < 0.0001) and high‐risk subgroup (89.6% vs 74.7%, P = 0.04). Notably, the 3‐year RFS and OS rates in the chemotherapy‐free subgroup of the low‐to‐intermediate‐risk patients (n = 88) were 100% and 100%, respectively. In the entire cohort, a total of 10 patients developed secondary malignant neoplasms, including 7 patients with therapy‐related myeloid neoplasms (t‐MN). The estimated 5‐year cumulative incidence risk of t‐MN in the ATO and non‐ATO groups was 1.0% and 0.4%, respectively (P = 0.34). Thus, our data revealed that the long‐term outcome of patients treated with ATRA plus ATO‐based regimens was associated with continuing high efficacy in all Sanz risk patients with newly diagnosed APL.