Clofarabine and Cytarabine Regimen for Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Successful combination chemotherapy involving clofarabine, cyclophosphamide, and etoposide for pediatric relapsed acute myeloid leukemia: A case report

Limited salvage chemotherapies are available for relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia. Herein, we described successful reinduction chemotherapy, involving a combination of clofarabine, cyclophosphamide, and etoposide, in a 12-year-old male with relapsed acute myeloid leukemia prior to allogeneic bone marrow transplantation from his father. Although treatment with a combination of fludarabine, cytarabine, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, idarubicin, and gemtuzumab ozogamicin had no positive effects, the aforementioned clofarabine-based chemotherapy induced complete remission and allowed the transplantation to go ahead. The abovementioned regimen may be useful for induction chemotherapy prior to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for refractory/relapsed acute myeloid leukemia.

Has Drug Repurposing Fulfilled its Promise in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia?

Drug repurposing is a method of drug discovery that consists of finding a new therapeutic context for an old drug. Compound identification arises from screening of large libraries of active compounds, through interrogating databases of cell line gene expression response upon treatment or by merging several types of information concerning disease-drug relationships. Although, there is a general consensus on the potential and advantages of this drug discovery modality, at the practical level to-date no non-anti-cancer repurposed compounds have been introduced into standard acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) management, albeit that preclinical validation yielded several candidates. The review presents the state-of-the-art drug repurposing approach in AML and poses the question of what has to be done in order to take a full advantage of it, both at the stage of screening design and later when progressing from the preclinical to the clinical phases of drug development. We argue that improvements are needed to model and read-out systems as well as to screening technologies, but also to more funding and trust in drug repurposing strategies.