The CancerWeb Report, What's New In Cancer: May, 1996
Childhood leukemia

• Amsacrine and Etoposide - A randomized trial of a combination of amsacrine and etoposide with the same two agents plus azacitidine was carried out by the Pediatric Oncology Group. There were 167 children with acute myeloid leukemia who had either failed to respond to induction therapy or had relapsed. Overall there were 56 complete responses (34%). In patients who were induction failures, the response rate was higher for three-drugs than two (53% versus 18%), but there was no difference for patients in relapse (31% versus 35%). Both regimens had similar bone marrow suppressive effects leading to infection. The significantly better response in induction failures warrants further study in such patients. (Steuber, J Clin Oncol 14:1521, 1996)