ASSESSING SENSITIVITY IN SUSPENSION TO CYTOSINE-ARABINOSIDE - STATISTICAL-ANALYSIS, ASSOCIATIONS WITH CLINICAL OUTCOME AND EXPERIMENTAL-DESIGN

As part of the treatment protocol in 40 leukaemia patients using cytos ine arabinoside for remission induction therapy, the sensitivity of ea ch patient's blast cell progenitors to the drug was determined by the liquid suspension assay. To summarize the dose-response curves obtaine d in this assay, we considered a model that assumes the existence of a resistant subpopulation of progenitor cells. We also considered the m edian effect model popular in pharmacokinetics. Both models were simil ar in their ability to describe the data. Parameter values that charac terize a low baseline number of progenitor cells exhibiting high sensi tivity both at low and high dosages were found to indicate good progno sis. We also identified a simple, economical, robust and efficient des ign for conducting future assays.