High-dose combination chemotherapy for acute nonlymphoblastic leukemia in adults.

One hundred thirty-nine consecutive unselected adults with acute nonlymphoblastic leukemia were treated with a high-dose chemotherapeutic remission-induction regimen consisting of daunomycin (70 mg/m2 IV on days 1, 2, 3), cytosine arabinoside (100 mg/m2 IV every 12 hours), 6-thioguanine (100 mg/m2 orally every 12 hours), prednisone (40 mg/m2 daily), all given on days 1 through 7, and vincristine (1 mg/m2 IV on days 1 and 7). Supportive care consisted of broad spectrum antibiotics for fever in the presence of granulocytopenia and prophylactic platelet transfusions. The complete remission (CR) rate was 60%. The median number of days to CR was 30. Fifty-eight of 77 (75%) patients under age 50 and 26 of 62 (42%) patients over age 50 attained CR. Despite the use of a relatively large dose of daunomycin and monthly maintenance chemotherapy, the median remission duration was only 39 weeks and the medial survival 64 weeks. Most patients who failed to achieve CR died early-77% of deaths occurred within the first six weeks. Infections accounted for the increase mortality in patients over age 50. Thirty-seven percent of patients over age 50 died of infections whereas only 10% under age 50 did so (P less than 0.001). Seven percent of the patients died of fungal infection during attempted remission induction. The incidence of resistance of the leukemia to the remission-induction regimen was low (8%).