OncoTargets and Therapy (Aug 2017)
Therapies for acute myeloid leukemia: vosaroxin
Abstract
Hamid Sayar,1 Parvaneh Bashardoust2 1Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA; 2Oceania University of Medicine, OUM-North America, Indianapolis, IN, USA Abstract: Vosaroxin, a quinolone-derivative chemotherapeutic agent, was considered a promising drug for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Early-stage clinical trials with this agent led to a large randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study of vosaroxin in combination with intermediate-dose cytarabine for the treatment of relapsed or refractory AML. The study demonstrated better complete remission rates with vosaroxin, but there was no statistically significant overall survival benefit in the whole cohort. A subset analysis censoring patients who had undergone allogeneic stem cell transplantation, however, revealed a modest but statistically significant improvement in overall survival particularly among older patients. This article reviews the data available on vosaroxin including clinical trials in AML and offers an analysis of findings of these studies as well as the current status of vosaroxin. Keywords: AML, acute myeloid leukemia, vosaroxin, SNS-595, cytarabine
