Cytotoxicity of adriamycin and daunorubicin for normal and leukemia progenitor cells of man.

A colony assay available for a subpopulation of acute myeloblastic leukemia blasts with proliferative potential was used to measure adriamycin (adria) and daunorubicin (dauno) dose-response curves following brief exposure to either drug and washing. The dose-response curves were simple negative exponentials that might be characterized by D10 (dose required to reduce survival to 10%) values. The D10 values ranged from 0.47 to 20.8 microgram/ml for adria (8 patients) and from 0.06 to 0.34 microgram/ml for dauno (3 patients). Controls consisted of committed granulopoietic and T-lymphocyte progenitors. Four measurements of granulopoietic progenitors yielded D10 values from 2.5 to 11.5 mug/ml for adria and from 0.44 to 1.2 microgram/ml for dauno. T-lymphocyte precursors from 4 normal individuals were resistant. However, following incubation of normal leukocytes with phytohemagglutinin, DNA synthesis commenced in T-lymphocyte precursors for 3 additional normal controls, which was associated with an increased data sensitivity with D10 values ranging from 4.4 to 6.2 microgram/ml.