Real-world outcomes of frontline venetoclax-based therapy in older adults with acute myeloid leukemia: an analysis utilizing EHR data

Venetoclax (VEN) in combination with hypomethylating agents (HMA) or low-dose cytarabine has become the standard of care for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who are ineligible to receive intensive induction chemotherapy. Clinical trials are performed in a controlled setting that can be difficult to emulate in the real world. We sought to investigate outcomes of patients treated with VEN-based therapy in the real world. Patients with an age of ≥65 years who received frontline VEN-based therapy were identified using the COTA database (n = 112). The majority of patients (91%) were treated in the community setting and had adverse-risk AML (63%). The real-world overall response rate (rwORR) was 55% with a median real-world overall survival (rwOS) of 13 months after VEN/HMA. The rwORR was lower and median rwOS was shorter than those reported in the VIALE-A trial, underscoring the importance of studying novel therapies using real-world data.