Arsenic Trioxide Becomes an Important Treatment for Leukemia

MIAMISBURG, Ohio -- The Oncologist, the international peer-reviewed medical journal, releases a supplement (Vol. 6, Suppl. 2, 2001) on a new anticancer drug, arsenic trioxide (As2O3; Trisenox(TM); Cell Therapeutics, Inc., Seattle, WA), which is approved for relapsed or refractory acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) and under investigation for a wide variety of malignancies.

"Because of its significant medicinal properties, arsenic has been used as a therapeutic agent for more than 2,400 years," reports Dr. Karen Antman of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Antman traces arsenic's return as an orthodox treatment for certain forms of cancer to "the 1930s when its efficacy was reported in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) (and) was considered the most effective treatment for CML and other types of leukemia. Recently, reports from China have described the induction of clinical and hematologic responses by arsenic trioxide in patients with de novo and relapsed APL...an important observation, inasmuch as approximately 20% to 30% of patients with this form of acute myelogenous leukemia relapse despite (conventional chemotherapy)." In addition, arsenic treatment of these leukemic patients did not produce bone marrow suppression, a frequent complication of many chemotherapy drugs.

In September 2000, the FDA approved the use of Trisenox for the treatment of relapsed or refractory APL based on its remarkable efficacy in trials conducted in the United States. Dr. Steven Soignet (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) reports that, "Therapy with arsenic trioxide offers the opportunity for a complete response (CR) and improved survival in patients with refractory/relapsed APL. Combining the results from the pilot and multicenter studies, the CR rate was 87% (45 of 52). Of the 45 patients achieving a CR, 31 (69%) remained alive at a median follow-up of 18 months."

"Arsenic Trioxide: Scientific and Clinical Progress" publishes the proceedings of a scientific conference where scientists and physicians discussed the role of arsenic trioxide in the therapy of hematologic cancers and solid tumors, clarified the risk/benefit profile of arsenic therapy, and interpreted the results of clinical trials of Trisenox. Because of promising preclinical findings and clinical results in APL with arsenic trioxide, Dr. Anthony Murgo of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) writes that the NCI has been interested in assisting in the development of this compound..."working cooperatively with research centers across the United States to evaluate its clinical activity in hematologic malignancies...(and also) in solid tumors."

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