University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna - Research portal

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in dogs is a rare disease with poor prognosis. In most subjects, palliative treatment or euthanasia is performed. A 3.5-year-old male castrated labrador with AML-M7, which was treated with induction polychemotherapy (8 cycles) using vincristine (0.5 mg/m(2)/cycle), daunorubicin (20 mg/m(2)/cycle), cytosine arabinoside (ARA-C, 100 mg/m(2)/cycle) and prednisolone (1 mg/kg/day) is reported. Treatment was well tolerated and complete remission was achieved. Postinduction chemotherapy consisted of ARA-C, daunorubicin and prednisolone. After 3, 5 and 18 months, the subject relapsed. Each relapse was treated with ARA-C (up to 1,000 mg/m(2)) and etoposide or daunorubicin. Again, no severe side-effects occurred and the disease was controlled, with 37 chemotherapy-cycles (ARA-C, 3 x 1,000 mg/m(2)/cycle), for 24 months. Based on a literature-search, this is the first report documenting a long-term response of canine AML, probably resulting from the high-dose ARA-C. Clinical trials using high-dose ARA-C are now required to confirm antileukemic efficacy in canine leukemias.

Keywords Pubmed: Animals
Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols/therapeutic use*
Bone Marrow Cells/drug effects
Bone Marrow Cells/pathology
Cytarabine/administration & dosage
Daunorubicin/administration & dosage
Dog Diseases/drug therapy*
Dogs
Etoposide/administration & dosage
Leukemia, Megakaryoblastic, Acute/drug therapy
Leukemia, Megakaryoblastic, Acute/pathology
Leukemia, Megakaryoblastic, Acute/veterinary*
Male
Prednisolone/administration & dosage
Recurrence/prevention & control
Remission Induction
Vincristine/administration & dosage