Assessment of the drug sensitivity of acute nonlymphocytic leukaemia using the in vitro clonogenic assay

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Abstract
The ability of an in vitro clonogenic drug sensitivity assay to predict the outcome of therapy for acute nonlymphocytic leukaemia was evaluated using marrow cells obtained from previously untreated or first relapsed patients treated with either cytosine arabinoside/anthracycline antibiotic or high dose cytosine arabinoside remission induction therapy. While the per cent of leukaemic cells killed in vitro was correlated with the outcome of therapy, this drug sensitivity assay provided little or no clinically useful information. In 1980 we reported the results of our initial studies of an in vitro drug sensitivity assay designed to predict the response of patients with acute nonlymphocytic leukaemia (ANLL) to chemotherapy (Preisler, 198Oa). The studies described here extend our initial report and relate in vitro drug sensitivity to the biological characteristics of the leukaemic cells and to response to remission induction therapy with conventional dose cytosine arabinosidelanthracycline antibiotic therapy or ‘high dose’ cytosine arabinoside therapy.