Adnkronos Rome, November 17 (Adnkronos Salute) – "The oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor quizartinib, in its pivotal Quantum-First study, has been shown to reduce the risk of mortality by 22%, with a median overall survival of 31,9 months versus 15,1 months in the chemotherapy-only control arm. This represents a doubling in overall survival at a very long median follow-up of 39,2 months."
This was stated by Gilda Ascione, Medical Director and Head of Oncology Medical Affairs at Daiichi Sankyo Italy, at the media briefing organized today by the pharmaceutical company in Milan to mark the reimbursement of the new treatment option for newly diagnosed FLT3-ITD-positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive form associated with a higher risk of relapse and a poor prognosis. "Quizartinib has been approved and reimbursed in Italy for patients with FLT3-ITD-positive acute myeloid leukemia," Ascione specified, "in combination with standard cytarabine- and anthracycline-based induction chemotherapy and standard cytarabine-based consolidation chemotherapy, followed by maintenance monotherapy for up to 36 cycles in patients with newly diagnosed AML positive for the FLT3-ITD mutation."
This second-generation "tyrosine kinase inhibitor," "highly potent and selective, acts directly on the Flt3 receptor, which, when mutated, is constitutively active at the cellular level. When quizartinib enters the cell through the cell membrane," Ascione explains, "it binds to the ITD domain and blocks the kinase cascade downstream of the receptor, which is responsible for blocking the proliferation of leukemic cells." This "promotes cell differentiation into active, 'physiological' cells and induces apoptosis, or the cell death of the leukemic cells themselves," he concludes.