We examined the efficacy of
bendamustine in 15 pretreated patients (12
men, 3 women, median age 69 years) with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) or
myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) 3 AML, 5 sAML, 5 CMML II, 1
RAEB II. Patients belonged to the following cytogenetic groups: 3 complex
abnormal karyotypes, 7 normal karyotypes, 1 case with 20q- as sole anomaly and 4 single aberrations. The patients received in median two cycles of
bendamustine (range 1-5) with a dose of 100 mg/m(2) at Day 1 + 2 (repeated after 28 days). Nine of 15 patients had no side effects of the treatment, six patients suffered from
vomiting and epigastric
pain as adverse effects of
bendamustine. According to the IWG criteria, no complete remission or reduction of transfusions frequency have been observed. Three patients showed no response, one patient with AML died due to progressive disease. In 11 of 12 patients with initial
leukocytosis (median 68,975 microl(-1), range 24,000-149,000 microl(-1)), a significant reduction of
leukocytosis was achieved with
bendamustine with a median duration of 4 weeks. In summary, treatment with
bendamustine in patients with high-risk MDS or sAML with
leukocytosis can result in a significant reduction of leukocytes, but fails to achieve hematological responses or improvement of transfusions dependency.