Cytarabine in consolidation chemotherapy of adult acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract

Cytarabine plays a pivotal role in chemotherapy for adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML). For all AML adult patients, especially core binding factor (CBF) AML adult patients, and AML adult patients with t(8; 21)(q22; q22) karyotype and inv(16)/t(16; 16) karyotype, application of 4 courses of high dose of cytarabine (HDAC) can effectively improve the prognosis. AML adult patients with RAS mutation also tend to benefit from HDAC. However, in the consolidation chemotherapy in AML adult patients, issues like optimal course of treatment, cumulative dose, single drug or multiagent chemotherapy (MCT) of cytarabine are still being explored. With the application of newly-developed drugs as targeting certain gene mutations, treatment regimens of cytarabine still need to be optimized. This article focuses on application research progress of cytarabine in the consolidation chemotherapy of AML adult patients and its studying current status. Key words: Leukemia, myeloid, acute; Cytarabine; Drug therapy; Antineoplastic combined chemotherapy protocol