| The following article features coverage from the American Society of Hematology (ASH) 2018 meeting. Click here to read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s conference coverage. |
The EUTOS long-term survival score (ELTS) better discriminates patients for risk stratification than the standard Sokal score, according to findings from an analysis of data from patients treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). The work was conducted by the Gruppo Italiano Malattie Ematologiche Adulto Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Working Party (GIMEMA CML WP), and the findings were presented at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition in San Diego, California.1
“The risk distribution with ELTS and Sokal score and the concordance between the 2 scores were different in adults younger than 30 years, adults aged 30 to 64 years, and elderly patients aged 65 years or older,” said lead study author Fausto Castagnetti, MD, PhD, the Institute of Hematology, University of Bologna, Italy.
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The ELTS score was developed with patients treated with first-line imatinib, “specifically to discriminate the probability of dying from CML,” Dr Castagnetti said.
The findings bolstered previous evidence that ELTS scores better predict overall survival and leukemia-related survival than Sokal score or Euro score.2-4 Because the Sokal system is the oldest and most widely used, and the ELTS is relatively new, many clinicians still had considered ELTS to be unproven.
“Many clinicians still use the Sokal score and further evidence was required to support and implement the clinical use of the ELTS score,” he noted.
But a third of patients stratified by ELTS score had a different Sokal score, Dr Castagnetti and colleagues found. Half of Sokal high- and intermediate-risk patients were potentially misclassified, he reported.
