title: Activity of two phase I drugs N-methylformamide (NSC-3051) and Echinomycin (NSC-526417) against fresh surgical explants of human tumors in the 6-day subrenal capsule (SRC) assay.
abstract: The potential clinical activity of the new phase I drugs N-methylformamide (N-MF) and Echinomycin (ECH) was examined while still undergoing clinical toxicology trials by testing against fresh surgical explants of human tumors in the 6-day in vivo SRC Assay. Sixty-nine tumors representing different histologic types including breast, lung, colon, ovarian, and cervical, as well as neoplasms of undiagnosed origin, were screened against N-MF (NSC-3051) and ECH (NSC-526417) simultaneously with five standard chemotherapeutic agents used clinically for treatment of the specific type of cancer. Thus, activity of N-MF and ECH could be compared directly with that of standard agents tested in the same assay. Treatment schedule was QD1-5, and the criterion for drug activity was tumor graft regression greater than 20%. N-MF was active against 15/69 tumors with a response rate of 22%. ECH was also active against 15/69 tumors, yielding the same response rate. Although the response rates for N-MF and ECH were the same, indicating a similar degree of general anti-tumor activity as evaluated by the assay, N-MF showed greatest activity against lung tumors whereas ECH was more active against ovarian tumors. Twenty-six of 69 tumors (38%) were unresponsive to all drugs tested, only one tumor was responsive to both N-MF and ECH and no tumors were responsive to either N-MF or ECH alone. Cytoxan, one of the standard agents tested concurrently with both phase I drugs yielded a response rate of 35%, one and one-half times greater. Cervical and renal cancers and lymphomas were relatively unresponsive to both drugs.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003520:Cyclophosphamide / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004341:Drug Evaluation; D004448:Echinomycin / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005260:Female; D005559:Formamides / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*; D011810:Quinoxalines / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous
chemical_list: D005559:Formamides; D011810:Quinoxalines; D004448:Echinomycin; D003520:Cyclophosphamide; C002950:methylformamide