Effect of schedule and combinations on clinical effectiveness of Ara‐C in adult acute leukemia

An important property of the drug arabinosyl cytosine is that the clinical effectiveness in adult acute leukemia is significantly affected by the schedule of drug administration. Moreover, changes in schedule result in a qualitative change in the nature of the dose limiting toxicity of the drug. A second important property of Ara‐C is its relatively unique synergistic effect with other classes of drugs, including alkylating agents, thiopurines and anthracycline antibiotics. These two important properties indicate that continuing clinical investigation of new treatment strategies incorporating arabinosyl cytosine are likely to further increase both the quantitative effectiveness of the drug and the spectrum of diseases where useful.