Blood, 1960, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 1268-1278.
© 1960 American Society of Hematology, Inc.
Evaluation of a New Chemotherapeutic Agent in Patients
with "Advanced Refractory" Acute Leukemia.
Studies of 6-Azauracil
EMIL J. FREIREICH 1,
EMIL FREI III 1,
JAMES F. HOLLAND 2,
DONALD PINKEL 2,
OLEG SELAWRY 2,
HARVEY ROTHBERG 3,
FARID HAURANI 4,
ROBERT TAYLOR 1, and
EDMUND A. GEHAN 1
1 National Cancer institute, Bethesda. Md.
2 Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo. N. Y.
3 Walter Reed Army Hosptial, Washington, D. C.
4 Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa.
6-Azauracil was studied in patients with "advanced" acute leukemia, refractory to standard chemotherapy. Under the conditions of the study this
compound was found to have no significant antileukemic activity. As a result,
these data have defined the natural history of this phase of acute leukemia. A
significant proportion (30 per cent) of these patients showed objective hematologic improvement even in the absence of effective specific therapy, which
might be ascribed to a prospective new agent. The median survival from the
onset of the study of this group of patients was two months, and survival
patterns for adults and children were similar.
Submitted on December 23, 1959
Accepted on February 20, 1960
