Combination chemotherapy with cytosine arabinoside and rubidomycin in 30 cases of acute granulocytic leukemia

Thirty patients with acute granulocytic leukemia were treated with ARA-C (100 mg/m2 IV during 5 days) and RBD (100 mg/m2/day during 3 days). Twenty-two patients with AML and eight with APML were treated. The drugs always induced severe pancytopenia lasting an average of 18 days. Sixteen patients achieved complete remission; 2 were partial remissions, and 12 were failures. Survival time among all patients averaged 12 months. Of the 16 patients achieving complete remission, only 6 relapsed and 14 patients are still alive (5 to 19 months).