Activity of CHS 828 in primary cultures of human hematological and solid tumors in vitro.

CHS 828 is a pyridyl cyanoguanidine that has shown promising preclinical anticancer activity against various experimental tumor models and is presently being tested in a phase II trial in man. In the present study the fluorometric microculture cytotoxicity assay was used for in vitro evaluation of CHS 828 activity in primary cell cultures from hematological and solid tumors. In total, 156 samples from various diagnoses were tested with 72-h continuous drug exposure. CHS 828 showed high relative in vitro activity against tumor cells from chronic lymphocytic leukemia as well as from acute leukemia and high-grade lymphoma. Activity was also observed in several solid tumor cell samples, although the group as a whole appeared less responsive. CHS 828 was significantly more active against hematological malignancies compared to normal lymphocytes. Correlation analysis with standard drugs revealed low to moderate correlation coefficients. The results show that CHS 828 has potent antitumor activity against primary cultures of human tumor cells from patients and might have a unique mechanism of action.