ABSTRACT
Anthracycline antibiotics are principal agents in the treatment of acute non-lymphocytic leukemia, although the usefulness are limited by their adverse side effects, especially by the cardiotoxicity. Aclacinomycin A (ACM) is known to be a new anthracycline antibiotic which has been isolated from Streptomyces galilaeus, and its cardiotoxicity on the experimental animal systems was reported to be more than 10 times lower than that of adriamycin. We investigated the cardiotoxicity of ACM on 29 patients with acute leukemia and compared it with daunorubicin (DNR). The measurement of STI (PEP:LVET) has been recommended to be convenient method of assessing the anthracycline cardiotoxicity, but through out analytical study, QTC measurement was proved to be more valuable for the simple and rapid detection of the cardiotoxicity induced by the agents. In comparison with the QTCs in DNR and ACM, the cardiotoxicity of ACM was much lower than that of DNR, and the reversibility of ACM induced cardiotoxicity was much more rapid. Moreover, these effects were observed even in the patients treated with the maximum dose of DNR. Therefore, ACM was expected to be one of the agents of the first choice for the relapsed cases of acute leukemia, especially APL.
