Arsenic-vitamin A combo works for leukemia

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study has confirmed the long-term safety and effectiveness of treating a type of leukemia with a combination of an arsenic compound and a form of vitamin A.

Treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia with the combination of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and arsenic trioxide (ATO) has been looked at over the short term, but long-term data were lacking, Dr. Zhu Chen and colleagues explain in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In their current report, Chen, from the Shanghai Institute of Hematology, China, and colleagues describe the outcomes of 85 patients who were followed for an average of 70 months.

Complete remission was achieved by 94 percent of the patients, and 97 percent of them lived for at least five years, the report indicates.

In general, ATRA/ATO therapy was well tolerated and side effects were mild and reversible. No secondary malignancies were seen, and two years after the final dose of therapy, urine arsenic levels were well below toxic levels.

Chen's team says ATRA/ATO-based therapy "yields an encouraging long-term survival rate ... and thus reinforces its potential use as a frontline therapy" for people with newly diagnosed acute promyelocytic leukemia.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 16th Early Edition, 2009.