Addressing the incremental benefit of histamine dihydrochloride when added to interleukin-2 in treating acute myeloid leukemia: a Bayesian meta-analysis

Abstract

IL-2 has been investigated as maintenance therapy for patients with AML in five randomized trials. None has shown a statistically significant benefit. A randomized trial of HDC + IL-2 showed a statistically significant benefit for leukemia-free survival (LFS) in comparison with standard of care. Because HDC + IL-2 has not been randomized against IL-2 alone, the question remains as to whether and to what extent HDC + IL-2 is an improvement compared to IL-2 alone. This is a literature-based meta-analysis. We employ two versions of a Bayesian hierarchical model to compare HDC + IL-2 versus IL-2 alone on the basis of LFS in patients in remission from AML.