Treatment of adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia with adriamycin, vincristine, and prednisone.

At the present time, it is possible to achieve up to a 95% complete remission in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia, using the combination of vincristine and prednisone. Nevertheless, it has not been possible to reproduce these results in the adult. For this reason, a third drug, in this case adriamycin in a low dose, was added to the vincristine-prednisone combination in the treatment of adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Complete remission was achieved in 45 of the 50 patients (90%). The median duration of remission was 23 months and the median survival time in this group was 31 months. The complications were minimal and the tolerance was good. From the point of view of our results and others reported in the literature, we consider that the combination of vincristine, prednisone, and adriamycin is a useful method for induction of remission of adult ALL.