The Effect of Granulocyte-colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF) on Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) After Induction Therapy in Newly Diagnosed Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)

Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) is konwn to have no significant effect on leukemia stem cells and has been widely used in the patients with agranulocytosis after chemotherapy. Minimal residual disease (MRD), an good index for early treatment response, plays an important role in prognostic prediction. Numbers of data have shown MRD at day 14 after induction therapy significantly predicts prognosis. However, the retrospetive data from the investigators showed that patients with G-CSF treatment after induction had higher MRD at day 14 but not significantly different at day 28,suggesting that G-CSF might work on the differenciation of hemapoetic stem cells and increase MRD level at day 14. In this multicenter prospective study, the investigators randomizedly divide all participants with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) into G-CSF treatment group and G-SCF-free group. In G-CSF treatment group, all participants are treated with G-CSF at the dose of 5ug/kg pre day until neutrophil higher than 0.5 g/L or 14 days from day three after induction therapy. MRD is monitored at day 14 and 28 with flow cytometry and quantity PCR if a fusion gene is available in both G-CSF treatment and G-CSF-free groups. Comparision of the difference of MRD levels between the two groups is performed to evaluate the effect of G-CSF on MRD.