Treatment of acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome by low dose cytosine arabinoside.

Recent reports by Baccarani and Tura [2], Moloney and Rosenthal [9], and Housset et al. [6] prompted us to treat 12 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and 4 myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients with low dose cytosine arabinoside (Ara-C). In all patients, conventional chemotherapy was contraindicated because of previous inefficacy, advanced age, or heavy comorbidity. Ara-C was given in a dose of 10 mg/m2 S.c. every 12 h for 14-28 days. All patients received one or two courses. If bone marrow revealed more than 5 % blasts 1 week after the end of therapy, another course was started. Patients who obtained a complete or partial remission received maintenance chemotherapy with low dose Ara-C (10 mg/m2 s.c. every 12 h) for 8 days every 3 or 4 weeks.