Females have a survival advantage over males in nonacute promyelocytic leukemia AML

Key clinical point: Female vs male gender confers a survival advantage in patients with nonacute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, reasons for this sex-specific advantage remain to be explored.

Major finding: Among patients with non-APL AML, females vs males had a significantly longer overall survival (hazard ratio, 0.85; P = .0001), but not disease-free survival (P = .14). This survival advantage was irrespective of patient age, white blood cell count, or initial blood and marrow blast counts.

Study details: Findings are from a retrospective analysis of 3,546 newly diagnosed patients with AML, including 548 with APL enrolled in 10 studies of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-American College of Radiology Imaging Network Cancer Research Group between March 1984 and November 2008.

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Disclosures: This study was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Source: Wiernik PH et al. Br J Haematol. 2021 Jun 17. doi: 10.1111/bjh.17523.