Continuous infusion intermediate-dose cytarabine, mitoxantrone, plus etoposide for refractory or early relapsed acute myelogenous leukemia.

For refractory and early relapsed AML, this prospective phase II clinical trial evaluated a salvage chemotherapy regimen, which was consisted of continuous infusion intermediate-dose cytarabine (1g/m(2)/day, 24h i.v. infusion x 5), mitoxantrone (12 mg/m(2)/day x 3), and etoposide (150 mg/m(2)/day x 3). We treated 33 patients and 17 (51.5%) achieved CR with a median duration of 117 days. Median overall survival was 219 days. Our results suggest that continuous infusion intermediate-dose cytarabine, together with mitoxantrone and etoposide, may induce CR in a significant proportion of patients with refractory or early relapsed AML, although remission duration was short.