Androgen in the treatment of refractory anemia.

We retrospectively evaluated the efficacy of androgen in the treatment of refractory anemia (RA) and compared patient characteristics and the probability of survival in androgen-responder and nonresponder groups. Forty patients with RA were treated in our hospital between 1975-1989, and 27 were treated with various derivatives of androgen. Eleven of the latter responded effectively to androgen therapy, representing an efficacy rate of 40.7%, higher than that of any other treatments thus far reported. The probability of 10-year survival estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method was 75.0% for the responder group and 41.3% for nonresponders, with a median follow-up of 1202 and 1272 days, respectively. In addition, the percent probability of transformation-free survival was higher among androgen-responders than among nonresponders, though the difference was not significant. Transformation from RA to RAEB or overt leukemia was seen in only one case among the former group, but in six among the latter. With respect to patient characteristics, only the percentage of marrow myeloblasts differed significantly between the groups.