Health-related quality of life benefits of arsenic trioxide in patients with non-high-risk acute promyelocytic leukemia are sustained over time: long-term results of the GIMEMA APL0406 trial

Very limited evidence is available on the long-term health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) treated with arsenic trioxide (ATO). We performed an extended follow-up of the APL0406 randomized controlled trial to investigate HRQoL of patients treated with either ATO or chemotherapy. A secondary objective was to describe the prevalence of clinically important problems and symptoms of these patients by type of treatment. Overall, 117 patients were included in this analysis after a median follow-up of 10 years (IQR 8–11) since diagnosis. Of these, 60 (51.3%) were treated with ATO, and 57 (48.7%) with chemotherapy. A statistically significant and clinically relevant difference, favoring patients treated with ATO, was found in 2 of the 3 main prespecified EORTC QLQ-C30 scales, that is, cognitive functioning (∆ = 7.7; 95% CI 0.5 to 14.9; p = 0.036) and fatigue (∆ = -9.4; 95% CI -17.9 to -0.8; p = 0.031). The prevalence of clinically important problems and symptoms tended to be slightly higher in patients treated with chemotherapy. These findings suggest that previously observed HRQoL advantages of ATO therapy of patients included in the APL0406 trial are sustained over the long-term period. This study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03096496).