Q1 · MEDICINE
Article
Author: Cortes, Jorge ; Ravandi, Farhad ; Benito, Juliana ; Nguyen, Hoang Q ; Gutheil, John C ; Melink, Teresa J ; Gu, Yongchuan ; Wilson, William R ; Daver, Naval ; Kornblau, Steven ; Thall, Peter F ; Bueso-Ramos, Carlos ; Konoplev, Sergej ; Faderl, Stefan ; Kadia, Tapan ; Lu, Hongbo ; Konopleva, Marina ; Wei, Caimiao ; Pemmaraju, Naveen ; Coveler, Andrew ; Thomas, Deborah ; Estey, Elihu H ; Feliu, Jennie ; Borthakur, Gautam ; Andreeff, Michael ; Kantarjian, Hagop ; Yi, Cecilia Arana ; Jabbour, Elias
We previously demonstrated vast expansion of hypoxic areas in the leukemic microenvironment and provided a rationale for using hypoxia-activated prodrugs. PR104 is a phosphate ester that is rapidly hydrolyzed in vivo to the corresponding alcohol PR-104A and further reduced to the amine and hydroxyl-amine nitrogen mustards that induce DNA cross-linking in hypoxic cells under low oxygen concentrations. In this phase I/II study, patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (n=40) after 1 or 2 prior treatments or acute lymphoblastic leukemia (n=10) after any number of prior treatments received PR104; dose ranged from 1.1 to 4 g/m(2). The most common treatment-related grade 3/4 adverse events were myelosuppression (anemia 62%, neutropenia 50%, thrombocytopenia 46%), febrile neutropenia (40%), infection (24%), and enterocolitis (14%). Ten of 31 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (32%) and 2 of 10 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (20%) who received 3 g/m(2) or 4 g/m(2) had a response (complete response, n=1; complete response without platelet recovery, n=5; morphological leukemia-free state, n=6). The extent of hypoxia was evaluated by the hypoxia tracer pimonidazole administered prior to a bone marrow biopsy and by immunohistochemical assessments of hypoxia-inducible factor alpha and carbonic anhydrase IX. A high fraction of leukemic cells expressed these markers, and PR104 administration resulted in measurable decrease of the proportions of hypoxic cells. These findings indicate that hypoxia is a prevalent feature of the leukemic microenvironment and that targeting hypoxia with hypoxia-activated prodrugs warrants further evaluation in acute leukemia. The trial is registered at clinicaltrials.gov identifier: 01037556.