Abstract
Aiming at the early completion of therapy, the authors tried a consolidation therapy using a massive Ara-C administration.
The subjects included ten patients with adult acute nonlymphocytic leukemia who were treated at our hospital during the period between August 1985 and March 1988. After an initial remission was successfully induced, a dose of 1 to 3g/m2 of Ara-C was administered twice a day for four to six days. This was followed by the administration of daunorubicin 25 to 45mg/m2 for two days. The treatment was then discontinued without any maintenance therapy.
Although the disease relapsed in three patients six to 16 months after the onset of remission, the state of remission was maintained for nine to 31 months in the other seven patients.
The side effects included nausea and vomiting in all cases, conjunctivitis in four cases, dermatitis in three cases, hepatic dysfunction in two cases, and cerebellar dysfunction in two cases.
This therapy resulted in almost the same degree of myelosuppression as did the remission therapy and no patient had fatal side effects during the treatment. Therefore, this therapy seemed safe as a concomitant adjuvant therapy to remission therapy.
