[Leukemic clonogenic assay and drug sensitivity test of homoharringtonine and cytarabine in acute myeloid leukemia].

Bone marrow cells from 33 patients with AML were cultured in vitro using PHA-LCM. The test consisted of two phases: an initial liquid phase and then a semi-liquid phase as described by Dicke et al. Drug sensitivity test for homoharringtonine (H) and cytarabine (A) were performed with clonogenic assay. All patients were treated with these drugs. The results showed that PHA-induced leukemic colonies (CFU-AML) varied from 0 to 812/2 x 10(5) cells (median 175). Three patterns of cell growth were recognized in analysis: high degree (7 patients) with more than 250 CFU-AML colonies, median degree (17 patients) with 50-250 and low, degree with 0 to 49 colonies (9 patients). Drug sensitivity was closely related to the cell growth patterns as evaluated with the clinical outcome. Patients with "high" growth pattern needed more sensitive drugs. When clonogenic assay showed "low" growth pattern, all patients responded to H and A very well regardless the degree of drug sensitivity. Most patients with M3 had high or median growth patterns and relatively low sensitivity to HA. Only one of the six patients with M3 got remission.