High-dose intravenous melphalan: a review.

Abstract
PURPOSETo review the clinical pharmacology and clinical trials that have used intravenous (IV) high-dose melphalan (HDM).METHODSWe reviewed the mechanism of action, clinical pharmacology, and clinical studies of HDM with and without autologous bone marrow support (ABMT) or peripheral-blood progenitor cells (PBPCs) in the following disease areas: myeloma, ovarian cancer, malignant lymphoma, breast cancer, neuroblastoma, Ewing's sarcoma, and acute leukemia.RESULTSHDM has a distribution half-life (t1/2 alpha) of 5 to 15 minutes and an elimination half-life (t1/2 beta) of 17 to 75 minutes at doses of 140 to 180 mg/m2, with significant intrapatient variability. At these doses, a wide range of areas under the concentration/time curve (AUC) have been reported, ie, 146 to 1,515 mg/min/mL. HDM has significant clinical activity in patients with multiple myeloma in relapse or when used as consolidative therapy in relapsed ovarian cancer, relapsed Hodgkin's disease, breast cancer, and relapsed neuroblastoma. Addition...

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