Treatment of Acute Leukemia in Adults with Massive Doses of Prednisone and Prednisolone

Abstract

THE treatment of acute leukemia of adults has been attended with considerable disappointment. The folic acid antagonists, although occasionally productive of well defined remissions, ordinarily have no value. 6-mercaptopurine gives somewhat more frequent remissions, and with less toxicity than aminopterin, but a remission rate of 10 to 15 per cent in our hands is not particularly encouraging. Relatively small doses of the adrenocortical steroids have been useful in producing minor remissions with marked symptomatic improvement, as well as in controlling fever, hemorrhage, malaise and bone pain. However, because of the marked sodium-retaining property of the first products produced, the use . . .